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More "Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... steward's death she had sought out Selene, but dame Hannah could not and would not conduct her to see the sick girl, for she learnt from Mary that she was the mother of her patient's faithless lover; and on a second visit Selene was so shy, so timid and so strange in her demeanor, that the old woman was forced to conclude that her visit was an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... army, that went closest to the heart. Take these pictures, caught almost anywhere during a journey: A knot of little children in difficulties with the village water-tap or high-handled pump. A soldier, bearded and fatherly, or young and slim and therefore rather shy of the big girls' chaff, comes forward and lifts the pail or swings the handle. His reward, from the smallest babe swung high in air, or, if he is an older man, pressed against his knees, is a ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... contrast between the two children. Rachel Herrick is a shy child, with a delicate, refined face, lighted by wonderful gray eyes like Bronson's. I do not understand her. She seems afraid of me, and I confess I am equally afraid of her. Even Rachel Percival does not get on with her very well, although she has bravely ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... D'Arcy, she started and stopped short. "Won't you shake hands with my boy, Amabel?" said Lady Adelaide. "Oh, you must make friends with him, and he'll give you a ride on the rocking-horse after dinner. Surely such a big girl can't be shy?" ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was Alfaretta, clasping the hands of all the newcomers, fairly dancing up and down in her excitement, "hail-fellow-well-met" with them all, forgetful for once of the difference in their social positions which had used to make her shy and restrained. ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... tragic death of his own boy a few years before had left him shy of all boys. But his curiosity was roused and with ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... confidence the religious and moral teaching of the reverend fathers. A doctrine which preached separation from profane things; the attractions of a meditative and pious life, and mistrust of the world and its perilous pleasures, harmonized with the shy and melancholy timidity of his nature. Human beings, especially women, inspired him with secret aversion, which was increased by consciousness of his awkwardness and remissness whenever he found himself in the society of women or ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... more wanton, or I more shy, And after the bath I drew my garments close, Fearing thy soft persuasion amongst my hair When thou camest fresh with the ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... piece of ground as possible, as I intended the camp to remain here for a week or two. More thunder and lightning, with great heat and a few drops of rain. Thermometer, 106 degrees. There were countless numbers of the little cockatoo parrots here; they are very shy, and even when Gibson or Jimmy lets off a gun at them, a dozen or two are sure to fall; it takes some time, however, before another shot can be had at them. I fancy they are migrating. The pigeons swarm at night ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... face, with the red-tipt nose, and the patch over one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the old fellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was the more singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him into the stir and hubbub of the world more than the ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in his as she spoke. But David said never a word; only he bowed over Matilda's hand in the most calmly polite manner, and let it drop. He was not shy, Matilda thought, or he could not have made such an elegant reverence; but he did not speak a word. His aunt laughed a little, and yet gave a glance of ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... very man; and the best part of it was, he was shy of taking her at first. He talked a good deal about honour, and conscience, and deceiving some dear friend; but, Lord, we soon ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... cattalo calves," cried Jones, in ecstatic tones. "See how shy they are, how close they ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... on terms of lifelong friendship with hill, stream, rock, and tree. In his descriptions he often catches the expression of rural scenery, a very different thing from the mere looks, with the trained eye of familiar intimacy. A somewhat shy and hermitical being we take him to be, and more a student of his own heart than of men. His characters, where he introduces such, are commonly abstractions, with little of the flesh and blood of real life in them, and this from want of experience rather than of sympathy; for many of his poems ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... return of his master. He is, we hear, at this moment deeply occupied in his laboratory, seeking to produce a Homunculus. The servant retires, and the bachelor enters—the same whom we knew some years before as a shy young student, when Mephistopheles (in Faust's gown) made game of him. He is now become a man, and is so full of conceit that even Mephistopheles can do nothing with him, but moves his chair further and further, and at last addresses ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... looked at it, looked at her, at the table. Barring the gold-backed brushes, the jade platter and that bundle, there was nothing that she could conveniently shy, and, in his Oxford voice, but civilly enough, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... all seasons, repaired the stately heron, to devour the finny race; and thither came, on like errand, the splendidly-plumed kingfisher. The magpie chattered, the jay screamed and flew deeper into the woods as the horsemen approached, and the shy bittern hid herself amid the rushes. Occasionally, too, was heard the deep ominous croaking of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to the objects of our pursuit to distinguish them plainly, we were sorry to find that they were Porpoises instead of black-fish, as we had at first supposed; the former being shy and timid, and much more difficult to approach than the latter; and so they proved at present. Still we persevered for a while; the hope of obtaining food having been once excited, we were almost as reluctant to abandon the attempt as we had been at first to commence it. But after half ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... Sometimes she grew shy under her father's open admiration. She was afraid it was his love rather than his judgment that made her beautiful ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... balcony. This was certainly something like swearing allegiance, but I must confess that the fair cousin with the auburn hair, who lived next door to her, was the real object of my admiration; she was very modest and shy, and would only favour me with an occasional smile, but there was a sweetness in that timid, blushing smile which surpassed that of all the roses of Andalusia. She used also to serenade me on the piano by playing God ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... time with Judge Blodgett, warily snuffing the air, and shy of both Bohemia and Benares. Into the presence of Madame le Claire, now gowned appropriately for the morning, and looking—extraordinary, it is true, with her party-colored hair and luminous eyes—but not ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... gets to be eleven or twelve, and to grow thin and long, so that every two months a tuck has to be let down in her frocks, then a great difference becomes visible. The boy goes on racing and whooping and comporting himself generally like a young colt in a pasture; but she turns quiet and shy, cares no longer for rough play or exercise, takes droll little sentimental fancies into her head, and likes best the books which make her cry. Almost all girls have a fit of this kind some time or other in the course of their lives; and it is rather ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... quite four years old, came forward boldly enough, and submitted to be lifted to her knee. But Norman, aged five, had been once or twice sent to the school, with his brothers, when his absence was convenient at home, and certain unpleasant recollections of such times made him a little shy of meeting her friendly advances. Even Robin and Jack had been in their day afraid of the mistress and her tawse. But Marjorie had never been at the school, and had always seen her in her best mood in the manse parlour. ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention of this amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the world; and he plainly addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me. I dare say there was more effort than I fancied in bringing his talk down to my humble ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... and brought up in the house of the boy's father, and became as tame as a dog. At length, it learned to follow the boy to school, and by degrees, it became his daily companion. At first, the other scholars were somewhat shy of Bruin's acquaintance; but before a great while, it became their constant play-fellow, and they delighted in sharing with it the little store of provisions which they brought for their own dinner. However, it wandered off into the woods again, ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... how often she had been seated, when a child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll. Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... it's probably no use explaining my motives—you wouldn't understand them. Still, in future, don't set down every man commonly honest as an uncommon fool. If I ever had much money, which is hardly likely, I should fight extremely shy of any investments recommended by ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... evening! What are you running away for? Come, come now, don't be so shy, my little neighbors, and don't give the trail all to me because I happen to be a man, and the strongest. Come, Johnny, give me your hand. There! an honest, chubby little fist it is. Why, what have you got in your other hand? Been gathering nuts, hey? You ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... is so difficult to regain and always remains so fragile that, in spite of the shy reserve of La Blanchotte, they ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Wykehamists was shy and churlish, and sheered off from the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of becoming scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister where the studies took place in all weathers, showed them the hall, the chapel, and the chambers, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... better come first, for after you have heard the nightingale you won't care for the canary," added Rose, wishing to put Phebe at her ease, for she sat among them looking like a picture, but rather shy and silent, remembering the days when her place was ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Peter, a boyish individual Harmony had never met before. For the first time it struck her that Peter was young. He had always seemed rather old, solid and dependable, the fault of his elder brother attitude to her, no doubt. She was suddenly rather shy, a bit aloof. Peter felt the change and thought she was bored. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... consul's house, either by his wife or mother, in the presence of the vestal virgins. And having got into his friend's house privately, a few only being present, he began to deliberate how he should treat these men. The severest, and the only punishment fit for such heinous crimes, he was somewhat shy and fearful of inflicting, as well from the clemency of his nature, as also lest he should be thought to exercise his authority too insolently, and to treat too harshly men of the noblest birth and most ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... looked and beheld from the height of the burg shapes of men grey and colourless creeping toward the lair from sunshine to shadow, like wild creatures shy and fearful of the hunter, or ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... the library, and was standing motionless before the mantel. She became suddenly aware of what was going on within the mind of Mr. McGowan, and a shy embarrassment ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... was being questioned in Religion, and Fris asked him whether he could give the names of the three greatest festivals in the year, amused every one by answering: "Midsummer Eve, Harvest-home and—and——" There was a third, too, but when it came to the point, he was shy of mentioning it—his birthday! In certain ways it was the greatest of them all, even though no one but Father Lasse knew about it—and the people who wrote the almanac, of course; they knew about ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... but it isn't always best to go at it bald-headed. However, never mind, Ned. I am now convinced that there would be little use in asking Mr. Darwood questions in any circumstances. The instant you begin to talk Alaska with that man he is going to shy off. He fears he might be trapped into an admission, or else he thinks we are trying to pump him for some other reason. You may be sure that others have tried to draw him out, believing they might obtain information that he ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... hand at flirting; but it was left for this season to stamp Miss Kennedy as 'the most unapproachable woman in town.' Which, however, unfortunately, made her more popular than ever. She was so lovely in her shy reserve; the hardwon favours were so delightful; the smiles so witching when they came; and nobody ever suspected that what she did with all her triumphs was to mentally bestow them on somebody else. They belonged to him, now, not to her, and for ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... and dining hall while the remainder of the building was given over to sleeping quarters, with the exception of a corner set apart as the battery office and supply room—a most business-like place, from which the soldier usually steered shy, unless he wanted something, or had a kick to register about serving as K. P., or on some other official detail when he remembered having done a turn at the said detail just a few ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... and thou, Pylades, Dearest of friends, though from a foreign soil, Prepare your enterprise with speed. Dark night Is vanished with her stars, and day's bright orb Hath waked the birds of morn into full song. Now, then, ere foot of man go forth, ye two Knit counsels. 'Tis no time for shy delay: The very moment for your act ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... Oh, I dare say I'm a fool for my pains, Ma. Nothing'll come of it. [Rising and pacing the room again.] Farncombe's as shy as a school-girl; he'd be on a desert island with a pretty woman for a month without ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... are a type which one associates with certain marked characteristics. No nervous man is wanted, and it is time for an aviator to take a rest at the first sign of nerves. They seem rather shy, men given to observation rather than to talking; accustomed to using their eyes and hands. It is difficult to realize that some quiet, young fellow who is pointed out has had so many hairbreadth escapes. What tales, worthy of Arabian ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... it is until they get there. That's the way to catch the snippy ones. Let's don't even tell Miss Judy. It might make her kind of shy. Just let 'em all get to dancin' an' kinder warmed up an' then when we got 'em where they can't back out without bein' mighty rude we'll up an' make speeches an' let the county know how we stand for that girl an' what she is an' how proud we are ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; to see Mr. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... spoke first, and it was the only one that was fired, for Sinclair's horse was gun-shy indeed. At the explosion he pitched straight into the air with a squeal of mustang fright and came down bucking. The others forgot to look for the results of Lowrie's shot. They reined their horses away from the pitching broncho disgustedly. Sinclair ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... thinking that my presence at the outset will make Captain Colendorp shy at any proposition ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... money, camels or horses, according to her personal charms, beauty, and social position. Beluch women, when young, are not at all bad-looking with well-cut features and languid eyes full of animal magnetism like the Persian, and they seem shy and modest enough. The Beluch men have great respect for them, and treat them with consideration, although—like all Orientals—they let women do all the hard work, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... was not a beauty in her youth," said my new guide in her shy voice, "but always fluent, always a wit. Kings Port has at times thought her tongue too downright. We think that wit runs in her family, for young John Mayrant has it; and her first-cousin-once-removed put the Earl of Mainridge in his place at her father's ball in 1840. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... head-waiter, with a low bow, ushered them to their table. Mr. Skinner saw the preparations for their repast, the oysters, the cocktails in tall glasses, the magnum of champagne in ice, and chuckled. To take supper with a duke was a novelty to him, but he was not shy. He sat down and tucked his serviette into his waistcoat, raised his glass, and suddenly set it ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... waited below. She heard Mr. Hazlewood in the hall greeting the Pettifers with the false joviality which sat so ill upon him; she imagined the shy nods and glances which told them that the trap was properly set. Mr. Hazlewood led them ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... habitues slipped in familiarly among the rest, so did one or two eldest sons; shy, mute young men tricked out in gorgeous jewelry, and highly honored by an invitation to this literary solemnity, the boldest men among them so far shook off the weight of awe as to chatter a good deal with Mlle. de la Haye. The women solemnly arranged themselves ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Should he go and fetch it? Dared he offer it to her? He was on hail-fellow-well-met terms with lions and tigers, as April had curiously divined, but having enjoyed fewer encounters with women, was slightly shy of them. However, being naturally courageous, he might presently have been observed emerging from a deck cabin with a canvas foot-rest in his hand, and it was only the natural sequence of events that while attempting ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... to descend the bank was rugged, and, because of what was there besides, such that every eye would be shy ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... capturing. So the hospitable doors were soon thrown open to the young clergyman from Doughty Street, who suddenly found himself a member of the most brilliant circle ever gathered under an English roof. In old age he used to declare, to the amusement of his friends, that as a young man he had been shy, but had wrestled with the temptation and overcome it. As regards the master[25] of Holland House, it was not easy to be shy in the presence of "that frank politeness which at once relieved all the ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... fringe. This pathetic remnant of gentility, borne rudely about by the Wallencamp winds, with Lydia's refined face and melancholy dark eyes, gave her a very interesting and picturesque appearance; though I never thought she wore the mantilla during the winter for effect. She was shy, though exceedingly gentle in her manners. At first, I had thought that she avoided me. But one time, when making the round of my parochial calls, I stopped at the Cradlebows', and Mr. Cradlebow discoursing fluently ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the two boys, encumbered with their dresses, shy and awkward, and rehearsing their lines like a task, was no small contrast to the merry impromptu under the oak, and the gay, free grace of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stupid; and even when she thought of a good thing to say, the reflection that it must needs be shouted aloud made her pause until the available moment had gone by. It was some relief that Bressant ate well, and seemed in no way shy or cast down himself. There was a freshness and vivacity in his enjoyment of his supper which was pleasing to Cornelia for several reasons: it was evidently very far from being affected, was consequently indirectly complimentary to her, and showed a certain boyishness in him which contrasted ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... separated the moment they met, but neither had the impulse nor the intention to leave the shade of the wood; and when the brief twilight fell and the moon rose, there still was Nevis, and after her the many craft to divert their gaze. Hamilton was honourable and shy, and Rachael was a woman of uncommon strength of character and had been brought up by a woman of austere virtue. These causes held them apart for a time, but one might as well have attempted to block two comets rushing at each ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson's presence[775].' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... you darling!" said Charlotte, as she clasped the little creature in her arms, and the baby, too young to be shy, allowed her to kiss ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... to the time when I must summon a cab and drive to the ferry; and yet I was still shy one stenographer. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... this rebuke of impertinence. In a minute Harry was sorry he had amused himself by giving it. There was something strangely affecting in the woman. Middle-aged, stout, faded, bound in manner and speech by a shy clumsiness, she refused to be insignificant, she made an appeal to him which he puzzled over in vain. Her simplicity was with power, as of a nature which had cared only for the greater things. He felt himself meeting one who had more than he of human quality, richer in suffering, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... happy here with the dear sisters and the girls. But I thought you understood me, mamma—understood by instinct, as it were," said Lesley, kneeling by her mother's side, and throwing an occasional shy glance into ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... coupe—a smart young creature with a nice blue coat, fond of town, I should say, but quite at home in the country. She also is inspecting two bloaters. But these two are very shy. In fact they are not really bloaters at all; they are rather a pair of nice-mannered fresh herrings, not long mated. The male had something to do with that war, I should think; the coupe would help ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... niece and nephew of his more than he could ever have imagined himself liking any young people. They had been shy with him at the outset—and for the first week his experiment had been darkened by the belief that, between themselves, they did not deem him quite good enough. He had been wise enough, then, to have it out with the girl—she was the one to whom ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Geneva. An old friend, possibly Louis du Tillet, discovered him, and told Farel; and Farel, in sore straits for a helper, besought him, and indeed in the name of the Almighty commanded him, to stay. Calvin was reluctant, for he was reserved and shy, and conceived his vocation to be the scholar's rather than the preacher's; but the entreaties of Farel, half tearful, half minatory, prevailed. And thus Calvin's connection with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... twice shy," said Parable, and strange to say, from that moment I took a violent fancy to the man. However, he'd grasped my meaning, as his answer showed, and next time I met him, he was happier than I'd ever known him to be. Joy blazed in his face and he walked ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... fell upon him when informed of his illegitimate birth. "I was mad from the time I was told of my birth," he wrote, and until madness supervened he suffered from a "wounded imagination." He was morbid, shy, and irritable, and his energy—the explosive energy of this frail youth was amazing; because he had been refused the use of a ship boat he wasted three months digging out a canoe from a log of wood. Like Paul Gauguin, he ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... however, I took my seat on a bank close under a thick bush,—while the silence around me was as profound as if no wing had ever fluttered there,—and became as motionless as circumstances would allow, for beside the birds there were other tenants not half so shy. ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... was still some louis shy, made no bones about pleading guilty. Interrogated, the culprit deposed that he had taken the money because he needed it to buy books. No, he wasn't sorry. Yes, it was probable that, granted further opportunity, he would do it again. Advised that he was apparently ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... remark to Irene—perhaps she was shy—but, starting off at a quick pace, led her down a long passage into a room on the ground floor. It was a pleasant room with a French window that opened out on to a veranda, where, over a marble balustrade, there was a view of an orange garden and the sea. Round ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... impressed itself insensibly upon us as worthy of the highest respect. But it was simply from the natural effluence of a noble character, for we came rarely into anything like personal intimacy with him. He was reserved and even shy, and I doubt if any of us knew much more of him privately than I ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... could.. If I had a little money, I could make a start, and after I started, and could show the doubters what could be done, I could raise more money then. I am sure of it. Of course the first investment is the most dangerous gamble, and that's why everybody is shy. But I believe my scheme would work, though I can't seem to get anybody else to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... a signature in this way is to call attention to the fraud instantly. A man may make a shaky mismove of the pen somewhere in the body of the check, and if it is not too prominent a teller may take a chance and pass it; but he will shy at a signature which isn't what it ought to be—that subtle sixth sense of the old teller prompts him to it before he knows why, and a paying teller is ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... us, except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system. He was not permitted to talk with the men, unless an officer was by. With officers he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose. But he grew shy, though he had favourites: I was one. Then the captain always asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in succession took up the invitation in its turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... to perpetual? It is the comet, which no sooner gets out of reach of our flying compliments than she becomes the pet of Jupiter's magnificent citizens, or calls forth deprecating murmurs from our shy sister Venus, and Mercury, our milder brother, who, from all such mischiefs, creeps as nearly as possible under the paternal wings of the Sun. No one of these erratic visitors can remember the time when she was not making a stir somewhere in the universe, or when a cloudy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... In the country house at which we met it had not occurred to me to speculate on his social standing, as human frailty determined that one should do in the case of so many splendid and gallant officers of the New Army. His manners were marked by shy simplicity and quiet reserve. It was a shock to preconceived ideas to find him bred in a circus, even in so magnificent a circus as the Cirque Rocambeau, and brought up by a clown, even by such a superior clown as ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... orchard aisles are sweet With smell of ripening fruit. Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, Flutter, at coming feet, The robins ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... believe, can really be done, till this notion is extinguished,—till teacher and students have got to understand each other, and have agreed to banish the foolish mauvaise honte which makes every Englishman shy of talking to a fellow-creature. The freer the colloquial intercourse between teacher and students, the more is learned in the time. To establish this is not easy; but harder still is the task of setting the students on a familiar footing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... held in distrust. Some said he was proud; some objected that he was sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The whole population were shy of him on these various counts of indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion, that his only time for walking up and down was when the evening Club were assembled at their songs and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... hints on etiquette. We told them how to address peers and bishops; also how to eat soup. We instructed shy young men how to acquire easy grace in drawing-rooms. We taught dancing to both sexes by the aid of diagrams. We solved their religious doubts for them, and supplied them with a code of morals that would have done credit ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... alternate with low rolling hills, and in but few places are the altitudes at all impressive. It is a smiling island. It has been said, too, that everything in it is friendly to man: the people are amiable, warm-hearted; the very animals and insects are harmless. Cuban cattle are shy, but trusting; Cuban horses are patient and affectionate; the serpents have no poison, and although the spiders and the scorpions grow large and forbidding, their sting is ineffective. But here in the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... He was shy as a girl, although time was already coyly flirting white flowers at his temples, and could hardly be coaxed to meet the learned and great who wanted to take him by ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... April, With soft slow rain, And earth has broken Her frozen chain— Sing low shy birdnotes, And woodland ways, Sing mirth and music Of ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... reinforced from many side-doors, thickened, and Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, under the gaze of so many eyes, became uneasy and shy. Harley, who had been made a member of their party, found himself sharing this awkward feeling, and he was glad to hear the announcement ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... I ain't a-wantin' no damned dawgs fer to chaw me up. So I'm goin' to mosey over Bull Head t'-morrer. You-all 'll go 'long, nice an' peaceable—er ye'll be drug." He spoke with a snarl now. "Ye'll know hit, when I once git ye cross the state line—cuss ye! Ye'll find I hain't so damned shy, arter all!" ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... the people to the king." Before leaving the exhibition he recurred to the subject, again expressing his deep regret. "I hope that none of you believe," said he, "that I am the sort of man who is shy of being seen among the people. I have no grounds whatever ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... laced high to meet her brief gray skirts, silver hat with a single velvet rose on the brim to match the soft rose-bloom on her cheeks. Gila with eyes as wide and innocent as a baby's, cupid mouth curved sweetly in a gracious, shy smile, and dainty little prayer-book done in gray suede held devoutly in ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... her, for Mr. Denner was far too timid to offer assistance, and the rector too stout, and Mr. Dale too absent-minded. As for Mr. Forsythe, he did not notice how Miss Deborah was occupied, until Lois had joined her; and then his offer was not accepted, for Miss Deborah felt shy about putting out her foot in its black kid slipper, tied about the ankle with a black ribbon, in the presence of this young man, who was, she was ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... sit under Mrs. Morres's wing, and listen, through her witty and wise talk, to the utterances of the great. She felt very shy of these companies of distinguished men and women. Lady Agatha made one or two attempts to draw her closer. Then, perceiving that she was happier in her corner, she ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... sadists whose crimes were very much more serious and brutal than those of De Sade. A man who stabbed women in the streets at St. Louis was a waiter with a high-pitched, effeminate voice and boyish appearance. Reidel, the sadistic murderer, was timid, modest, and delicate; he was too shy to urinate in the presence of other people. A sadistic zooephilist, described by A. Marie, who attempted to strangle a woman fellow-worker, had always been very timid, blushed with much facility, could not look ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... reaching Mr. Larabee, who was a bit shy of strangers. When one, (in this case Larson) was announced by ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... or so." Ward was not in his most expansive mood, chiefly for the reason that this man was a stranger, and of strangers he was inclined to fight shy. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... what had happened, while the doctor went up to the invalid who was coming more and more to himself, and was still smiling: he seemed to be beginning to feel shy at the commotion ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Bristol appointment at Cleevewood in the parish of Mangotsfield. He retired in February 1854, and lived afterwards in Clifton till his death on November 28, 1864. I remember him as a gentle and courteous old man, very shy, and, in his later years, never leaving his house, and amusing himself with speculating upon music and the prophecies. He inherited apparently the nervous temperament of his family with less than ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the remains of her precious fifty dollars, insisted on advancing this; and on the first Sunday morning the young Italian, looking very pretty but rather shy, took her place in Miss Etta's class, and was at once enrolled among ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... mustn't you're near enough; stand just here. Try if you can't throw your fly there. If you went nearer, you would frighten the fish. They are just about as shy as if they were Daisies. Now I will go a little further off, and see what I can do. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... say about that," she laughed. "That's going beyond my business depth just yet, but I'm going to learn all about such things," and she looked across at him with apparent shy confidence that he would take ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... Professors, shy and otherwise, were lured from their classrooms to lecture before ladies' clubs hitherto sacred to the accents of transoceanic celebrities and Eleanor Roosevelt. There they competed on alternate forums ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the brink, As group on group retired link by link; For one pale lamp that floated out of view Five brighter ones they quickly placed anew; At length the slackening multitudes grew less, And the lamps floated scattered and apart. As stars grow few when morning's footsteps press When a slight girl, shy as the timid halt, Not far from where we stood, her offering brought. Singing a low sweet strain, with lips untaught. Her song proclaimed, that 'twas not many hours Since she had left her childhood's innocent home; And now ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... to Archie, and then ingratiated himself with a shy elderly woman who was having a difficult time finding partners for her granddaughters. The Governor introduced himself with a charming deference, a winning courtesy, that gained her heart at once. He not only danced ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... fancier's shop, or hie themselves to the cool heights of Mussoorie, or, better still, of Darjeeling, where the liothrix is exceptionally abundant. But even at Darjeeling the Pekin-robin will have to be looked for carefully, for it is of shy and retiring habits, and a small bird of such a disposition is apt to elude observation. In one respect the plains (let us give even the devil his due) are superior to the hills. The naturalist usually experiences little difficulty in observing birds in the sparsely-wooded flat country, but in ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... Govinda, the shy one, also stepped forward and spoke: "I also take my refuge in the exalted one and his teachings," and he asked to accepted into the community of his ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... Brundon, with an evident effort, smiled, her shy, blue eyes held resolutely on his countenance. She at once slipped into the background, talking in a low, clear voice to Graham Jannan's wife; while the older men enveloped themselves in a fragrant veil ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and to that end he and I did take a coach at night and to the Cockepitt, there to get the Duke of Albemarle's advice for our insuring some of our Sounde goods coming home under Harman's convoy, but he proved shy of doing it without knowledge of the Duke of Yorke, so we back again and calling at my house to see my wife, who is well; though my great trouble is that our poor little parish is the greatest number this weeke in all the city within the walls, having six, from one the last weeke; ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... a little to this, though she was too shy to say much. "Town is so cheerful," she said. It was not Sir Robert's way ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... conjure thee, as thou believ'st There is another comfort than this world, That thou neglect me not with that opinion That I am touch'd with madness: make not impossible That which but seems unlike; 'tis not impossible But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute, As Angelo; even so may Angelo, In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince, If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more, Had ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Titan,' it is not the sound of the consonants that makes the significance. When Tennyson speaks of the shrill-edged shriek of a mother, his words suggest with peculiar vividness the idea of a shriek; but when you speak of stars that shyly shimmer, the same sounds only intensify the idea of shy shimmering." This is refreshing, and yet it is to be noted that "Titan" and "tittle" and "shrill-edged shriek" and "shyly shimmer" are by no means identical in sound: they have merely certain consonants in common. A fairer test of tone-color may be found if ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... His garment from his shoulders threw, And, in the presence of his sire, Indued the ascetic's rough attire. But Sita, in her silks arrayed, Threw glances, trembling and afraid, On the bark coat she had to wear, Like a shy doe that eyes the snare. Ashamed and weeping for distress From the queen's hand she took the dress. The fair one, by her husband's side Who matched heaven's minstrel monarch,(312) cried: "How bind they on their woodland dress, Those hermits ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... his illustrious career, reputed a virgin. Albani, who translated into delicate oil-painting the sensuousness of the Adone, studied the forms of Nymphs and Venuses from his lovely wife, and the limbs of Amorini from the children whom she bore him regularly every year. Domenichino, a man of shy, retiring habits, preoccupied with the psychological problems which he strove to translate into dramatic pictures, doted on one woman, whom he married, and who lived to deplore his death (as she believed) ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... at the age of fifty-five. After various wanderings he is permitted to settle in Paris, where he lives with great frugality in a single room, poorly furnished,—supporting himself by again copying music, sought still in high society, yet shy, reserved, forlorn, bitter; occasionally making new friends, who are attracted by the infantine simplicity of his manners and apparent amiability, but losing them almost as soon as made by his petty jealousies and irritability, being "equally indignant ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... first impulse was to pass on without speaking, but the Boy looked at him, and there was something in the look, half shy, half appealing, which caused him to stop, and having stopped, he ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... "My cousin, however, desired me to point out to you the fact that in any case he would probably be shy of doing so. He is behaving in an absurd manner; he is in a very weakly state; and without a doubt he is to some degree insane. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he is in the Colony, or was three months ago, and that if he succeeds in reaching ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in majestic garments and with a smile on her lips, so that her still great beauty is impressive. But her eyes bear traces of tears. She accepts NAPOLEON'S attentions with the stormily sad air of a wounded beauty. Whilst she is being received the KING arrives. He is a plain, shy, honest-faced, awkward man, with a wrecked and solitary look. His manner to NAPOLEON is, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened my wonder at the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the sullen demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human life, that the greatest ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with the street-boys. But with Livia's elder son, Tiberius, he was different. Tiberius had no charm of manner: Drusus his brother quite put him in the shade. He carried with him the scars of his babyhood's perilous adventures, and the terror of that unremembered night of fire. He was desperately shy and sensitive; awkward in company; reserved, timid, retiring, silent. Within the nature so pent up were tense feelings; you would say ungovernable, only that he always did govern them. He went unnoticed; ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... off one by one, the boat's crew working a grassline bent to a lifebuoy. The boat to which we swam was riding to a big anchor a hundred feet from the shore, just outside the surf. There were a few sharks round the whaler, but they were shy and left us alone. Rennick worked round the boat in a small Norwegian pram and scared them away. Many trigger fish swallowed the thick vegetable oil which the boat's crew ladled into the sea to keep the surf down, and I think this probably attracted the sharks, though ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... ravine, and drank in the brook. The sight of these animals filled the hearts of the shipwrecked men with joy. It was to them a proof of civilization. New hopes, new joys, new strength came with the sight of these animals; and they advanced cautiously toward them. But the animals were shy, and scampered away up the hill at the first sight ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... the ocean! I do not pretend to understand Wheaton and Phillimore, or even to have read a single word of any international law. I have refused to read any such, knowing that it would only confuse and mislead me. But I have my common sense to guide me. Two men living in one street, quarrel and shy brickbats at each other, and make the whole street very uncomfortable. Not only is no one to interfere with them, but they are to have the privilege of deciding that their brickbats have the right of ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... had dropped, without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise. "You came for me for church, of course, but ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... show her my sister's flowers; for no word of mine would those lovely eyes look up. She was not shy; her grace of manner was too perfect for that, but she was evidently afraid to look at me, and I reproached myself that I had perhaps frightened her ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... dreary and desolate, featureless and melancholy, when the sky above it is filled with clouds. But sweep away the cloud-rack, and let the blue arch itself above the brown moorland, and all glows into lustre, and every undulation is brought out, and tiny shy forms of beauty are found in every corner. And so, if you drape Heaven with the clouds and mists born of indifference and worldliness, the world becomes mean, but if you dissipate the cloud and unveil heaven, earth is greatened. If the hope ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... reading books of travel and the lives of great men, which stirred him to emulation. In 1817 he went to the University of Giessen. Here he kept aloof from the political agitations among the students. Neither was he affected by the rationalistic teachings of the professors. His shy, retired nature aided him in this course, and his leisure hours were passed in reading the writings of the Reformers. The jubilee festival of the Reformation occurred in 1817, and the lives of the heroes of the faith were brought freshly home to him. Their ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... tell you that after my Mother's death my naturally happy disposition completely changed. Instead of being lively and demonstrative as I had been, I became timid, shy, and extremely sensitive; a look was enough to make me burst into tears. I could not bear to be noticed or to meet strangers, and was only at ease in my own family circle. There I was always cherished with the most loving ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... over the Connecticut hills, a shy, tender thing of delicate green winging its way with witch-rod over the wooded ridges and the sylvan paths of Diane Westfall's farm. And with the spring had come a great hammering by the sheepfold and the stables where a smiling horde of metropolitan ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... marvellous in the power he possessed of influencing others. He was by no means fluent of speech; his manners were shy, awkward, and retiring. He had little grace of person or ease in conversation, yet he somehow was more successful than most men of his time in winning friends, and obtaining aid for the great work he had set himself to accomplish. Probably his indomitable perseverance ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... rather than the grandeur of his station. If Louise had not seen him again the image of this young prince from fairyland might in time have faded from her mind, especially as an incipient love affair with a neighbor's son already existed. Some notes and occasional shy glances had been exchanged between Mademoiselle de La Valliere and young Bragelongne, who lived next door to the Saint-Remis at Blois, and had she not been suddenly carried off to court this nebulous romance might have materialized into a happy marriage, and a career more ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... in a warm strong pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her school years. There had been summer sessions twice and once father and mother had come to ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... and made as sudden a retreat round the nearest corner as was possible. He said afterwards that he hadn't the courage to thank me. I brought him to bay at last, and came to know him very well; and then I discovered how the nervousness, the bashfulness, the mauvaise honte, which made him so shy and retiring in private, stood him in wonderful stead on the stage. The nervous man became the fretful and capricious tyrant of mock tragedy; the bashful man warmed at the foot-lights with passion and power. The manner which in society was a drawback and a defect ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... to wear them," Anne said breathlessly. She gave Nancy a shy little kiss. "You were ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... is gun-shy," he said, "but I'll bet the rest of you I can drill a horn off that skull before ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... great Nevski was already there lying in a cathedral bearing his name, and the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul was ready to entomb the future Tsars. And Peter held his court, a poor imitation of Versailles, and gave great entertainments at which the shy and embarrassed ladies in their new costumes kept apart by themselves, and the attempt to introduce the European dances was a very sorry failure. In 1712 Peter planned a visit to Paris, with two ends in view—a political alliance and a matrimonial ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... hands with her than if she had been King George. The season at Grand Canary had not begun, and there were very few visitors at the hotel. Those who were there saw a frail nervous old lady, followed by a black girl who was too shy to raise her eyes. "We were certainly a frightened pair," Mary afterwards confessed. But the management attended to her as if she were a princess. "What love is wrapped round me!" she wrote. "All are kind,— the manager's family, the ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... night she veiled the starlit sky, And walked beside the brook so shy; She took from out her beating bosom A lighted orchis—and passed ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... horses and the dogs, gave bread to the shy young gazelle that John was endeavouring to tame, to offer to his bride. Then he suddenly drew her aside, and while Mr. Ives and Mary Jones strolled onwards to the garden, he took a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door of a loose box which he had passed ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... open-air meetings that later became so important a feature of the campaign was held on the Common at Bedford. The speakers were Mrs. FitzGerald, Mrs. Leonora S. Little, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick and Mrs. Crowley. The attendance was small; people were shy at first of seeming to countenance such an innovation but the crowds grew as the meetings continued and it was found to be the best if not the only way to reach the mass of voters. A summer campaign of 97 open-air meetings was held, the speakers traveling ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... compared the grays to the disadvantage of the latter. But she was determined to be as sweet and polite and English as her mother would desire. For the first time in her whole existence she was feeling a little shy. She would have been thoroughly at home on a dog cart, or on her favorite outside car, or on the back of Black Bess, who would have carried her swift as the wind; but in the landau, with her uncle seated by her side, she was altogether at ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one time when he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it would make ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... their influence imbued his whole nature. He accepted cordially the destiny that was before him, and threw himself into it with untiring industry. His opinions changed during his life much more than his character, and the shy, sensitive, industrious, somewhat self-conscious, somewhat awkward Harrow boy, prefigured very faithfully the future statesman. He is described as wandering when a schoolboy by himself among the hedges, knocking down birds with stones, a practice in which he was very skilful, and which eventually ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... France at the age of fifty-five. After various wanderings he is permitted to settle in Paris, where he lives with great frugality in a single room, poorly furnished,—supporting himself by again copying music, sought still in high society, yet shy, reserved, forlorn, bitter; occasionally making new friends, who are attracted by the infantine simplicity of his manners and apparent amiability, but losing them almost as soon as made by his petty jealousies and irritability, being "equally ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... gentlemen of that peculiar breed, at once forward and shy, found in the Regent's Park, came by on their way to lawn tennis, and he noted with disapproval their furtive stares of admiration. A loitering gardener halted to do something unnecessary to a clump of pampas grass; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... been there not long before, for their foe was still burning; yet we could see no people, nor any living creature, except a fowl called oxbird, being a grey sea-bird, in colour like a snipe, but different in the beak. Being by no means shy, we killed about eight dozen of them with small shot, and having spent the day fruitlessly, we went on board in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... importance, his aversion subsided, and he almost learnt to look forward to a chat with Mr. Nugent; or whether he looked forward to it or not, there could be no doubt that he enjoyed it. Though still shy, grave, silent, and inert, there was a great alteration in him since the time when he had had no friends, no interests, no pursuits beyond his study; and there was every reason to think that, in spite of the many severe shocks to his mauvaise honte, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scissors now, and trims his beard. Vain barge of a man; is he going to make himself handsome all at once, and cut away five years' growth of iron beard? He cuts and cuts away, looking at himself in his glass. He might have done all this at home, of course, but was shy of doing it before Oline; it was quite enough to stand there right in front of her nose and put on a red shirt. He cuts and cuts away, a certain amount of beard falls into his patent mirror. The horse grows impatient at last and ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... a few yards of it and wait until the little hideling's shyness wore off, and he would come out and start reeling. Afterwards I always went straight to the same bush, because I thought the bird that used it as his singing-place appeared less shy than the others. One day I spent a long time listening to this favourite; delightedly watching him, perched on a low twig on a level with my sight, and not more than five yards from me; his body perfectly motionless, but the head and wide-open beak ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... with a shy hesitation that became her very well, and as she approached, their old understanding immediately arranged itself between them. "I should be perfectly justified in sulking," he declared gaily, disencumbering a chair of a battered tin box of empty twisted tubes for her, "and asking ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... soon chattering away to their pleasant hostess as freely as if they had known her for months; but the boys were still rather shy, and made Sancho the medium through which they addressed one another. The excellent beast behaved with wonderful propriety, sitting upon his cushion in an attitude of such dignity that it seemed almost a liberty to offer him food. A dish of thick sandwiches had been provided for his ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... very hearty to-day," said Adam, happy in the signs of Dinah's feeling at the sight of him, but shy. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... yer?" The born poet had, after exhibiting signs of great distress, started to run. But Mr. McCorkle was down upon him instantly, seizing him by his long linen coat, and settled him back in his chair. "Tain't no use stampeding. Yer ye are and yer ye stays. For yer a borned poet,—ef ye are as shy as a jackass rabbit. Look ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... capital. He was entering Dresden on a late afternoon brown with German sunshine. The school year had begun, but a loitering summer-time brightened city and countryside. As he made his way slowly through the throng at the station, he gave evidence of a rather shy way of looking up and about, an apologetic readiness to step aside, to yield place, not characteristic of the speedy American in Europe. He had not, as we have said, come to Germany for adventure. He had not come ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... hotels, and they show themselves at such places without fear; at the same time that outside the Park (and when the early snow is on the ground their tracks are often observed going both out and in) these same beasts are very shy indeed. The hunter soon discovers that it is with the greatest difficulty that one ever sees them at all outside of the bounds of the Park. Bears, as well as deer, adapt themselves to the exigencies of ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... key. Horses must drink and they were creatures of habit, never ranging far from some one hole they had made their own. Trinfan blankets already flapped about the Pinto's chosen spring. They had seen the horses approach several times in the past two days and shy away from those flapping things ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... bon prince, adorning with skilful eloquent touches of description the glorious scene beneath his windows, the pageants at which he was an honoured spectator. Nothing could be more unlike the young, shy, proud, yet genial-hearted rustic, holding firmly by that magic wand of poetry which was his sole right to consideration, and facing the curious, puzzled, patronising world with a certain suspicion, a certain defiance, as of one whom ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... our study of this period, namely, the author himself, who in the Sketches already mentioned, and in his most noted work, The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, has told the story of these early years in considerable detail and with apparent sincerity. De Quincey was not a sturdy boy. Shy and dreamy, exquisitely sensitive to impressions of melancholy and mystery, he was endowed with an imagination abnormally active even for a child. It is customary to give prominence to De Quincey's pernicious habit of opium-eating, in attempting to ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... she was shown in, looking quite ordinary, and even a little shy, Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson rose to receive her with perfect ease, being supported by the consciousness that she was by far the more handsomely dressed of the two. In fact her greeting was so gracious as ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... a swift two days, gave half the time to Venice, But vows that she saw everything, although in awful haste; She's fond of dancing, but she seems to fight shy of lawn-tennis, Because it might endanger the proportions ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... they would be brought to church on the next christening Sunday, but their mother looked helpless and hopeless about getting them so far, and how was she to get gossips? Ethel began to grow very indignant, but she was always shy of finding fault with poor people to their faces when she would not have done so to persons in her own station, and so she was silent, while Richard hoped they would be able to manage, and said it would be better not to wait another month for still ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... the Babe, in triumph. "Here's Jack Herring and here's Somerville. Do you know, I could hardly persuade them to come out and see you. Dear old Jack, he always was so shy." ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... Lydia. "Mr. Dunham hasn't arranged anything yet." Staniford thought this uncandid. It was fighting shy of Hicks, who was the person in his own mind; and it reawakened a suspicion which was lurking there. "Mr. Dunham seems to ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... is usually so shy with strangers, and I never saw him greet any one so rapturously except my late husband. It ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... stillness around the tents, and before those who had revelled and rejoiced were awake, and called Hagar and her child. Can we not see them in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the child,—the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the vigour of manhood—the boy shy, yet half-defying—the mother! In such an hour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all the feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well forget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only remember that she had been Abraham's ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... few words—unheard-of courage! Such speech is usually brief and perhaps not ready, but it is likely to be cogent, because it is born of experience and "stops when through." County and perhaps State Granges add their experiences. And so on through the years these shy, reserved, possibly narrow, lives come to flower. And the Grange has furnished the dynamic. Strong leaders among farm women have been developed by the opportunities the Grange has afforded them. And thousands ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon every one else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost ...
— The Velveteen Rabbit • Margery Williams
... the glories of some tropical bird. He is come for water to this little spring by the hillside,—water which even his long bill and slender head can hardly reach, so nearly do the fantastic forms of those garland-like icy margins meet over the tiny stream beneath. It is rarely that one sees the shy beauty so close or so long; and it is pleasant to see him in the grace and beauty of his natural liberty, the only way to look at a bird. We used, before we lived in a street, to fix a little board outside the parlour window, and cover it ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... mottled Deer Who made her home close by, Who at his call came without fear, Forgetting to be shy. ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... possibility and had made the hook to turn with him. With exemplary patience 'the grey one' would continue his twisting until he had been drawn right up to the side of the boat and a second hook made fast in him. His sea-green, light-shy, pig-like eyes would glare malevolently up at his tormentors, and in his maddened fury he would bite, snap and fight until he ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... choked up with ashes. I can't tell exactly why, but the first thing I did that morning was to scrape out those ashes, and then I found some sticks and coals and built a fresh fire." Anthony flashed a glance at Betty out of his shy, almost frightened blue eyes. "I guess I was feeling kind of well disposed toward fires just then, camp fires anyhow. Then I was thinking that I would like to pay for my night's lodging in some way. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... these wild creatures are shy, and one may travel many days without adventure, and any sense of danger is soon lost in admiration of the beauties ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... joy of Pierre's father and mother on seeing the lad so soon returned was mingled with astonishment at seeing him arrive by water, and with a little English child in his care. The little one, with her exciting experiences behind her, did not dream of being shy, but was made happy at once with a kind welcome; while Pierre, the center of a wondering and exclaiming circle, narrated the wild adventures of the past few days, which had, indeed developed him all at once ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... slaughter-shop, Grim, and interview that Arab—Sidi bin Something-or-Other—forget his name—he lies in number nineteen cot on the left-hand side of the long ward, next to a Pathan who's shy both legs. You can't mistake him. I'll write out a medical certificate for Jeremy and follow. And say; wait a minute! What price the lot of you eating Mabel's chow tonight at our house? We don't keep a cook, so you won't get poisoned. That's settled; I'll ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... in the corn, in shy gazelles Running the sand where no man dwells; In horses scared at the prairie spring; In the dun deer noiseless, hurrying; In fish in the dimness scarcely seen, Save as shadows shooting in a shaking green; In birds ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... her with an embarrassed little laugh. Her question called up memories of shy glances, gifts of flowers and fruit, boyish confidences—all the things which fall to the lot of any teacher ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... agile cats among the green hedges, which were scented with the blossom of the olive, and the lion and the tiger were tame. The wild dove, glistening like a pearl, beat the lion's mane with his wings; and the antelope, otherwise so shy, stood by nodding, just as if he wanted to join ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... business into that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had marked the first year of Mr. Soulis's ministrations; and among those who were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of that particular topic. Now and again, only, one of the older folk would warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the minister's strange and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... drink in his hall, Audunn ate his meal out of doors, as is the custom of Rome pilgrims, so long as they have not laid aside their staff and scrip. In the evening, when the King went to Vespers, Audunn intended to meet him, but shy as he was before, he was much more so now that the courtiers were merry with drink. As they were going back, the King noticed a man, and thought he could see that he had not the confidence to come forward and meet him. But as the courtiers walked in, the King ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... came to no good end; though to one that was great. Therefore do not say to me that I am pretty, though I am glad that you should think so who can compare me with so many whom you have known," and she dropped her eyes, looking a little shy. ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... thank you." It was the shy little voice of Heart's Delight. A soft pink color had come into her round cheeks. Everybody looked at her in surprise, for how did Heart's Delight know that Chip had plenty of nuts? Then Terry ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... and called to her damsel to follow. Her varlet followed also, at a little distance behind. She found Elaine and a younger child waiting for her outside the gate. Elaine introduced her companion as her sister Annora. Annora proved much less shy than Elaine, and far more ready with her communications. But she was not asked many questions; for as they turned away from the convent gate, they were met by a monk in the Dominican habit, and Philippa knew directly the face ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... royal lovers. "My stay at Windsor was rather dull, but was a little enhanced by the loves of Prince Louis of Hesse and the Princess Alice. He had arrived the night before, almost a stranger to her" (a mistake), "but as her suitor. At first they were very shy, but they soon reminded me of Ferdinand and Miranda in the Tempest, and I looked on ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... little pang—with Lucille, and the head-waiter, with a low bow, ushered them to their table. Mr. Skinner saw the preparations for their repast, the oysters, the cocktails in tall glasses, the magnum of champagne in ice, and chuckled. To take supper with a duke was a novelty to him, but he was not shy. He sat down and tucked his serviette into his waistcoat, raised his glass, and ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have got him into a most unlordly scrape, from which they can only relieve him by treading back their steps. The more I consider their conduct, the more I am astonished at their impudence. A downright robbery is honourable to it. If you see Rogers, do not be shy to speak: he trembles at report, and here is ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... plants and trees, and beasts and fishes, and for flinging a kind of spiritual interest over these things, he did more than he perhaps intended toward consolidating the fame of his accidental human sojourn. He was as shy and ungregarious as Hawthorne; but he and the latter appear to have been sociably disposed towards each other, and there are some charming touches in the preface to the Mosses in regard to the hours they spent in boating ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... seemed a bit shy with him, as indeed Mick appeared to be with her, the two hardly exchanging a word; though I noticed that when Jack, the thrush, commenced calling out in his soft way, "Jenny! Jenny!" Mick flushed up ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... Perplexed in his shy, straightford nature, Hubert inquired if she took sugar in her tea. She said she did; stretched her feet to the fire, and lapsed into dream. She was one of the enigmas of Stageland. She supported herself, and went about by herself, looking a poor, lost little thing. She spoke with considerable freedom ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... long kiss a new love put forth its strength, not the pale beatitude of his dream, with its sweet wistfulness, its shy desires. That was large and vague and insubstantial, permeating like an odor the humdrum purlieus of the day. This was savage, triumphant, that leaped like flame from his heart to his mouth, that burned blood-red ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... receiving favors in a hospital is one thing, and an unknown discharged soldier asking them is quite another. The very thought of Quinby Graham presenting himself as a caller, and the comments that would follow made Eleanor shy away from ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... beat ther hides off'n 'em, neglect 'em, and when they're wore out turn 'em loose fer ther wolves. Second, they kin run off a bunch o' ponies in a hurry, but they balk some at rustlin' cattle because they move so slow. If we aire shy on beeves ther ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... to look upon. She had taken off her hat and coat in the little ante-room, and as she stood there in her black frock, with its demure little white turn-down collar, she looked very young, very shy, and if the truth must be told, very pretty. Whereupon Barry, who loved all pretty girls in a harmless, kindly fashion, rejoiced exceedingly; while even Owen, to whom things feminine were at present anathema, owned to himself that she was certainly ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... woman is the intelligent and modest attention she gives to serious discussions, and I always used to remind her of the comparison of a superior woman to a beautiful child with its great eyes full of feeling and sweetness and delicacy, with its shy questionings and its objections full of sense. I hoped that she would recognise herself in this portrait upon the text, and, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... resumed, "is beginning to make some rather shy, awkward advances, as if to secure my favor—a very futile endeavor as you can imagine. My views are changing in respect to remaining in his father's employ. The grasping old man would monopolize everything. I believe he would impoverish the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the mountain side hid in a grassy nook Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free, Who throng around the ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... and I attended it. I sat near the head of the table, with Redpath between me and the chairman; a stranger sat on my other side. I tried several times to talk with the stranger, but he seemed to be out of words and I presently ceased from troubling him. He was manifestly a very shy man, and, moreover, he might have been losing ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... its tissue-paper nest in the upper tray of her trunk. Its daintiness comforted and cheered her, as a friend's face might have done, and under its impetus she found calm enough to rearrange her hair, and, with many a shy recoil and shy caress, to lay out John's evening things for him, as she had often laid out her father's. How surprised, she smiled, he would be. How delighted, when he came, to find everything so comfy and domestic. ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... are, I'm tellin' you that Carlsen'll marry her if it suits his book. If it don't, he won't. An', if he wins out, he'll take her without botherin' about prayer-books an' ceremonies. I know his breed. All men are more or less selfish an' shy on morals, in streaks more or less wide, but that Carlsen's ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... it is an ideal shape, with no existence in space, only to be spoken of in figures and metaphors, makes it all the more important that in our thought it should be protected by no romantic scruple. Or perhaps it is not really the book that we are shy of, but a still more fugitive phantom—our pleasure in it. It spoils the fun of a novel to know how it is made—is this a reflection that lurks at the back of our minds? ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... have 'em do both," decided Joel. "Dave, pull this up, will you?" So little David ran and gave a lift on the other side of the big rocking chair, to haul it into place. "We'll run into somethin' an' th' horse'll shy, and that'll make the old stage-coach roll down hill. Gee-whickets!" he brought up, in ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... to sing," the boy began slowly. Now that the moment was at hand he felt suddenly shy at disclosing his errand. "I happened to think yesterday of the June Holiday Home down in Fair Harbor, and I wondered if you wouldn't rather go there and live ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... applying his plagiarized compliment. "Let's hurry or I'll be late for prayers. Would you like—will you come in to-day, as you are already up?" The color rose in Rose Mary's cheeks up under her long lashes and she gave him just one shy glance that had a tinge of roguishness ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... force. That is to say, the work of these undrilled, stupid, and not over-brave natives was scouting, a duty which while it is the most fascinating part of a soldier's life is also one of the most difficult. This then was an undertaking of which many a man might have felt shy, but Baden-Powell (the army is full of Baden-Powells) went at it cheerfully enough. On the arid desert outside the castle, which is called the parade ground, B.-P. and Captain Graham, D.S.O., taught these negroes, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... asleep," the girl answered briefly, and then, resting her chin upon her hands, she fixed her great dark eyes upon the glowing logs. She was Dan's foster-sister, eighteen years of age, though she looked hardly more than sixteen; a shy, slender, girl, lovely with a wild, unusual charm. To Tom she had always been a silent elfin creature, delightful as their playmate when a child, but now though still so familiar, she seemed in an odd ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... obediently towards the doorway. There she halted a moment, turned round, and looked timidly towards Kenelm. He had naturally risen from his seat as she rose, and advanced some paces as if to open the door for her. Thus their looks encountered. He could not interpret that shy gaze of hers: it was tender, it was deprecating, it was humble, it was pleading; a man accustomed to female conquests might have thought it was something more, something in which was the key to all. But that something more was an unknown tongue ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... again of the slight giddiness of fever, and they walked towards the house. Half way, Lucy said with sudden, shy energy— ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... travellers came to the house. They stopped at the door and asked for milk; the mother brought them brimming bowlsful, and the shy little girl crept up behind her mother with her birch-bark baskets of berries. The gentlemen took them and thanked her, and one told of his own little Mary at home, far away over the great sea. Jeannette often ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... but not much. They make the same signs of friendship, and their language seems to be one; but the others had proas, and these canoes. On the sides of some of these we saw the figures of several fish neatly cut, and these last were not so shy as ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... him also that he was diffident. Of course he was diffident. Was it not one and the same thing? The very pride of which he was accused was no more than that shrinking which comes from the want of trust in oneself. He was a shy man. All his friends and all his enemies knew that;—it was thus that he still discoursed with himself;—a shy, self-conscious, timid, shrinking, thin-skinned man! Of course he was diffident. Then why urge him on to tasks for which he ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... married or single, Irma liked best of all) there came in some shy old farmer from the uplands, or perhaps a herd, to whose boy or girl "out at service" the mistress of Heathknowes had brought home a Bible. These had come to thank Mary Lyon, but could not get a ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... themselves; and if good wishes brings good luck, that's what you have to thank for succeeding. But Celandine she's an ambitious girl, Mrs, Tarbell, and the long and the short of it is just this, that she's set her heart on being a lawyer, and she's either too shy or too proud, mebbe, to come here with me to speak to you, ma'am: so I just put on my bunnit the first day I could, rain or shine, and rain it's turned out to be, to say a word to you about her and just ask you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... was right as to the social side of the question, but I am convinced that The Fair Haven did him grave harm in the literary world. Reviewers fought shy of him for the rest of his life. They had been taken in once, and they took very good care that they should not be taken in again. The word went forth that Butler was not to be taken seriously, whatever he wrote, and the results of the decree were ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... only child of a wealthy merchant: she was but seventeen when he first saw her and fell in love with her. Few people knew whether the twelve short months of his married life were but as a dream to him now, eleven years later, or whether his scant allusions to that time came from a shy tenderness for a memory which was his dearest and most sacred possession. Alice Raymond was but little past eighteen when she died, and even the child she left behind her had never really belonged to Mr. Floyd, but had grown up at her grandfather's at The Headlands while ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... quite made up his mind as to what he would do. When the opportunity should come in his way he would simply remind her that the three months were passed. But he was shy of talking to her in the presence of Lady Mabel and his father. He was quite determined that the thing should be done at once, but he certainly wished that Lady Mabel had not been there. In what she had said to him at the dinner-table she had made him understand that she would be a trouble to him. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... the strange gentleman still remained standing by her side, and, raising her calm blue eyes, she looked fixedly at him. What followed was for her most unusual: she was obliged to withdraw her glance, for, contrary to her expectation, she did not find Mr. Johnsen shy, awkward, and impressed with the strange surroundings. It was plain, however, that he was conscious that his behaviour was unconventional, but he did not therefore desist. This caused Rachel to lose somewhat of ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, 50 Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, And hints at her foregone gentilities With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves; The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, Glares red as blood across ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... "Just one shy at him!" pleaded Ripton, with his eye on Farmer Blaize's broad mark, and his whole mind drunken with a sudden revelation of the advantages of light ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to make of that man a puppet for our amusement, because he was shy, and stupid, and slow? He was as true in his devotion, as honorable in all his wishes, as confident in his hopes till they were blasted, as any one that has gone a wooing since the first whisper of love was ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of the joint note we had left for her. (I had removed all my belongings from No. 37 several days before.) But I thought she made a pretty little figure as a bride—gentle, clinging, tender, and no more than agreeably shy. And Heron, what a revelation to me his manner was! Throughout the evening there appeared not one faintest hint of his habitual acidulated brusqueness. Not one sharp word did he speak that night, and his manner toward my wife ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... your first shy at the government official, isn't it? They're not all as bad as that. At first I couldn't make out whether he was just fat and lazy. Now I know he's a grafter. He ought to get a nice neat 'For Sale' sign painted. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... soul, he cannot bear that that man's avarice should rob him of his beloved daughter, with whom he hoped to end in rest these last years of his failing age. In Naples we have no friends; for my father's disaster makes every one shy of us: our relatives are our enemies. Cornelia is kept in the house of my uncle's kinsman Giangiacopo Coscia, where no one is allowed to speak to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... wouldn't have shrunk from talking about Winn with Estelle. It was her right to talk about him, her splendid, perfect privilege. He supposed that she was a little shy, because she seemed to slip away from their obvious great topic; but he wished, if she wasn't going to talk about Winn, she would leave ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... crouching in an overhanging tree ready to drop into the procession at the right moment. Night and day, year after year, I see them going by, watched by the red fox and the comfortably clad sable, and grinned at by the black cat,—the innocent, the vicious, the timid and the savage, the shy and the bold, the chattering slanderer and the screaming prowler, the industrious and the peaceful, the tree-top critic and the crawling biter,—just as it is elsewhere. It makes me blush for my species when I think of it. This charming society is nearly extinct now: of the larger animals there ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... girls conscious of faded muslins and cleaned gloves. It was pleasant to see stately Mrs Amy promenade on the arm of a tall country boy, with thick boots and a big forehead, or Mrs Jo dance like a girl with a shy fellow whose arms went like pump-handles, and whose face was scarlet with confusion and pride at the honour of treading on the toes of the president's wife. Mrs Meg always had room on her sofa for two or three girls, and Mr Laurie devoted himself to these plain, poorly dressed damsels with a kindly ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... So shy was Mr Toots on such occasions, and so flurried! But Lady Skettles entering at the moment, Mr Toots was suddenly seized with a passion for asking her how she did, and hoping she was very well; nor could Mr Toots by any possibility leave off shaking hands with her, until ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and he was awkwardly stammering for words, with her cool hand in his grasp. As long as his enthusiasm had lasted he had talked fluently and naturally, swept away from his self-consciousness; but with the return of the formal amenities he became as ill at ease and shy as a boy. "There ain't anything more except that we're building a railroad out there, and I'm going back to finish it next spring ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... him. "Come in and talk to me." He looked shy and surprised. I insisted. Then Tom's aunt called me and, drawing me hastily into a corner, demanded why I was inviting a ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... Lang of Hospital No. 1 on Bataan. Miller had tried to do what he could for Lang, but no one else in the detachment was willing to give him a break. He was an unlettered hillbilly and, being ashamed of his own ignorance, he was shy toward other men. The rest of the story is ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... what nonsense!" Mr. Matterson appeared to be a very shy gentleman, and only anxious to escape from the hall-door. But Mr. Grey remembered that in former days, before the coming of Mr. Juniper upon the scene, he had heard of a clerical admirer. He had been told that the gentleman's name was Matterson, that he was not ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... from whose breast water is flowing. This can hardly be, however, for not only are the markings unlike those of the water opossum, but the large canine tooth indicates a large carnivore. Moreover, the water opossum is a small animal, hardly as big as a rat, of shy and retiring habits, and so is unlikely to figure in ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... remainder of her life in strict seclusion, constantly grieving in her quiet way for her departed lord. Her son grew up to the age of ten in this sad and lonely house, passing four of the most susceptible years of his life in the society of his sorrowful mother. He became a shy boy, and avoided the company of other children. His health began to suffer from the effects of such an unnatural state of affairs, and at the age of ten he was sent to live on a farm belonging to the family, on the shore of Sebago Lake, in Maine. The active out-door life which ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... to spend the summer here, are you?" says I. "Besides, it'll do you good to learn not to shy at a man just because he's done time. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... find out anything more of this curious story I will let you know, but I doubt if I shall be able to do so. Although fifteen years or so have passed since Dingaan's death in 1840 the Kaffirs are very shy of talking about this poor lady, and, I think, only did so to me because I am neither an official nor a missionary, but one whom they look upon as a friend because I have doctored so many of them. When I asked the Indunas about her at first they pretended total ignorance, but ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... Beautiful One to lie In the green peace within your gates, he came To give us greeting, boyish and kind and shy, And, stricken as we were, we blessed his name: Yet, like the Creature of Light that had been ours, Soon of the sweet Earth disinherited, He too must join, even with the Year's old flowers, The unanswering generations of the Dead. So stand we friends ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... prowling tiger-cat than would otherwise be the case. Even the bright colours of many male birds cannot fail to make them conspicuous to their enemies of all kinds. Hence, as Mr. Gould has remarked, it probably is that such birds are generally of a shy disposition, as if conscious that their beauty was a source of danger, and are much more difficult to discover or approach, than the sombre coloured and comparatively tame females or than the young and as yet unadorned ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... and, in riding, his preparation against accidents showed the same nervous and imaginative fearfulness. "His bridle," says the late Lord B——, who rode frequently with him at Genoa, "had, besides cavesson and martingale, various reins; and whenever he came near a place where his horse was likely to shy, he gathered up these said reins and fixed himself as if he was going at a five-barred gate." None surely but the most superficial or most prejudiced observers could ever seriously found upon such indications of nervousness any conclusion against ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... mere notion of going back (and as an officer, too), to be worried and bothered, and kept on the jump night and day by that brute, made me feel sick. But she wasn't a ship you could afford to fight shy of. Besides, the most genuine excuse could not be given without mortally offending Apse & Sons. The firm, and I believe the whole family down to the old unmarried aunts in Lancashire, had grown desperately touchy about that accursed ship's character. This was the case for answering 'Ready now' from ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the "week's wash" which had to be brought in before night fell and the mountain wind arose. It was strong at that altitude, and before this had ravished the clothes from the line, and scattered them along the highroad leading over the ridge, once even lashing the shy schoolmaster with a pair of Lanty's own stockings, and blinding the parson with a ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... neighborhood seemed to act shy of her. Even her old companions nodded very stiffly when they met her, and walked on the other side of the street ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... Charles is shy and very modest, and no bigger than so many French youths—he is only twenty-two—with dark-brown hair and blue eyes with very black centres, and a moustache that never succeeds in looking more than three weeks old. Being, however, brave, he does ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... had approached from another lunar GO rocket, which had just appeared. He had a thin intellectual face, dark eyes, trap mouth, white hair, soft speech that was almost shy. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... height. Half of the first floor housed the kitchen and dining hall while the remainder of the building was given over to sleeping quarters, with the exception of a corner set apart as the battery office and supply room—a most business-like place, from which the soldier usually steered shy, unless he wanted something, or had a kick to register about serving as K. P., or on some other official detail when he remembered having done a turn at the said detail just a few ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... frightened Donna Juanita clasps her hands in the agony of prayer before the crucifix in the chapel. Beside her stands Dolores, now a budding beauty, in radiant womanhood. The dark-eyed young girl is mute. Her pathetic glances are as shy as a wounded deer's dying gaze. "The ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... was relieved for I was lonesome and a bit nervous, and when I discovered that she knew a little English I could have hugged her. We spread our cold supper on the top of my dress suit case, put our one candle in the center, and proceeded to feast. Little Miss Izy was not as shy as she looked, and what she lacked in vocabulary she made up in enthusiasm. We got into a gale of laughter over our efforts to understand each other, and she was as curious about my costume as I was about hers. She watched me undress with unfeigned amusement, ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... woes and discomfitures of sea-sickness at once, and if there were any need to communicate such secrets to the public, one might tell of much more good that the pleasant morning-watch effected; but there are a set of emotions about which a man had best be shy of talking lightly,—and the feelings excited by contemplating this vast, magnificent, harmonious Nature are among these. The view of it inspires a delight and ecstasy which is not only hard to describe, but which ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to argue, but placed his strong hands on either side of her slender waist and lifted her lightly to the homemade table, while she gasped and again the wonderful smile, more shy this time, transformed her tear-stained face. In silence, and with flying, experienced fingers, the physician applied a soothing salve to the blotchy red, fast-swelling burn on the ankle, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Boarder. A slender, shy slip of a girl had his arm, and he was gazing into her intent eyes with ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... his hair weak and thin, his manner diffident, awkward, almost ungainly, but that its thorough courtesy and good-nature were so obvious and unaffected. In general society people passed him over as a shy, harmless, unmeaning little man; but those who really knew him affirmed that his courage was not to be damped, nor his nerve shaken, by extremity of danger—that he was always ready with succour for the needy, with sympathy for the sorrowful. In short, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... unlike himself than the bold advertising-agent in this colloquy. He was subdued and shy; his usual racy and virile talk had given place to an insipid mildness. He seemed bent on showing that the graces of polite society were not so strange to him as one might suppose. But under Mrs. Damerel's interrogation a restiveness began to appear in ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... don't think so. If we take the boat, 'fore we've gone far they'll ketch sight of us aboard, and send another one to fetch us back, or else make a cock-shy of ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... "Don't shy at you now! Well, I wonder at that," said Ike. "He's a wunner at shying. He can hit anything with a stone. I've seen him knock over a bird afore now, and when he gets off in the fields of an evening I've often knowed him bring back ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... best. Petie we called him; Peter Brand; he died long ago. He had been a comfort to my mother Marie, in days of sadness,—before my birth, for she was never sad after I came,—and she loved him, and he clung to her. He was a round-faced boy, with hair almost white; awkward and shy, but very good ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... disgusted to find that three of my shots had missed the target quite. To the captain, as he studied my target, I expressed my mortification. "What target were you shooting on?" he asked, in the lingo proper to our trade. I answered "Number Twelve." "Three shots shy," said the captain, "and here's Number Fourteen lacking two hits. Where's Number Thirteen?" "Here, sir," said Bannister, "and there's fifteen shots in my target." "Then three are mine," said I. "And two ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... true. But the result was that gossip spread wide about Anthony, and he was held in the town to be a very fearful person, who could do strange mischief if he had a mind to; Anthony never cared to walk abroad, for he was of a shy habit, and disliked to meet the eyes of his fellows; but if he did go about, men began to look curiously after him as he went by, shook their heads and talked together with a dark pleasure, while children fled ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... stop singing?" asked the young lady in turn; this stiff, shy, proud creature, what flame might one soon see flaring out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... were of a very rich and delicate flavour. The nest was that of a wild pheasant, (Leipoa), a bird of the size of a hen pheasant of England, and greatly resembling it in appearance and plumage; these birds are very cautious and shy, and run rapidly through the underwood, rarely flying unless when closely pursued. The shell of the egg is thin and fragile, and the young are hatched entirely by the heat of the sun, scratching their way out as soon as they are born, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... of those despotic states of Italy, I find that several of them, at Florence as well as at Sienna, were considered as dangerous meetings, and in 1568 the Medici suddenly suppressed those of the "Insipids," the "Shy," the "Disheartened," and others, but more particularly the "Stunned," gli Intronati, which excited loud laments. We have also an account of an academy which called itself the Lanternists, from the circumstance that their first meetings were held ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... quadrupled or quintupled veils. However, the marriage was effected in a Christian way, and the next morning there came to me an invitation to call upon the bride. I found her to be the most beautiful Chinese girl I had ever seen, with manners all the more pleasing because so very shy. Her husband had prepared quarters for her which, as compared with the average Chinese home, were almost palatial, and everything seemed to promise a ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... the school feeling as if her reason were rocking. She had never imagined that anything so nice could happen to her. Since the loss of her parents life had not been too bright. Sometimes she almost dreaded the holidays at her aunt's. She was shy and sensitive, and the impression that she was not altogether welcome there was a bitter one. It is very hard for a girl when she has no home of her own, and no one whose special prerogative it is to love and encourage her. Though her ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... suede boots laced high to meet her brief gray skirts, silver hat with a single velvet rose on the brim to match the soft rose-bloom on her cheeks. Gila with eyes as wide and innocent as a baby's, cupid mouth curved sweetly in a gracious, shy smile, and dainty little prayer-book done in gray suede held devoutly in ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... go, mind your duty; this gentleman and I belong to the service; but be sure you look after that shy cock in the slouched hat that sits in the corner of the coach. I believe he's one of the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of Rip Van Winkle; while Europe was full of scholars of more learning than Irving, and writers of equal skill in narrative, who might have told the story of Columbus as well as he told it and perhaps better. The under-graduates of Oxford who hooted their admiration of the shy author when he appeared in the theatre to receive his complimentary degree perhaps understood this, and expressed it in their shouts of "Diedrich Knickerbocker," "Ichabod Crane," ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... Casa Guidi rooms the happiest days of both lives were spent, and many a time have the walls resounded to the great voice, laughing, praising or condemning, of Walter Savage Landor; while the shy Hawthorne has talked here too. Casa Guidi lodged not only the Brownings, but, at one time, Lowell, who was not, however, a very good Florentine. "As for pictures," I find him writing, in 1874, on a later visit, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... 'Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put to them—and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I'll go down and—no, I won't JUST yet,' she went on, checking herself just as she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to find some excuse for turning shy so suddenly. 'It'll never do to go down among them without a good long branch to brush them away—and what fun it'll be when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—"Oh, I like it well enough—"' (here came the favourite little toss of the head), ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... but he is no coward," interrupted La Mothe hastily. He foresaw what was coming and had all a shy man's horror of being thanked. "He sat his horse like a little hero. There is no such courage as to ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... letting on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous lad the like of you. Was it in your house beyond ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... the freshman prize given out. It was won by a shy-looking little girl with big, pleading, brown eyes. Grace watched her closely as she walked up to receive it and resolved to find out more ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... time have I wandered out In the youth of the opening year, When Nature's face was fair to my eye, And her voice was sweet to my ear! When I numbered the daisies, so few and shy, That I met in my lonely way; But never before to my heart or eye, Came there ever so sweet a May As this— Sweet May! ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... of him that will grip him again every time he returns to the scene and will make him long and hunger for the place when he is away from it. Later, the lights in the busy streets will bewilder and entice him. He will feel shy and helpless amid the hurrying crowds. A new emotion will take his heart as the people hasten by him,—a feeling of loneliness, almost of grief, that with all of these souls about him he knows not one and ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... and some, I regret to say, from downright moral obliquity—as, for example, those between Cortinas and Canales —who, though generally hostile to the Imperialists, were freebooters enough to take a shy at each other frequently, and now and then even to join forces against Escobedo, unless we prevented them by coaxing or threats. A general who could unite these several factions was therefore greatly needed, and on my return to New Orleans I so telegraphed General Grant, and he, thinking ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... another, or judge a picture by the verdict of a colour-blind critic. The sensations of smell which cheer, inform, and broaden my life are not less pleasant merely because some critic who treads the wide, bright pathway of the eye has not cultivated his olfactive sense. Without the shy, fugitive, often unobserved sensations and the certainties which taste, smell, and touch give me, I should be obliged to take my conception of the universe wholly from others. I should lack the alchemy by which I now infuse into my world light, ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... explicit orders) descended to a drawing-room already full of people. Carrol knew them all, even the famous new beauty; but Fitz—or James Holden, rather—had, except for the Carrols, but a nodding acquaintance with one or two of the men. He felt shy, and blushed very becomingly while trying to explain to Mrs. Carrol how he and Wilson happened to be so unfortunate ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... with good-natured interest, which was not far removed from indifference, to the contralto, the 'cellist, the violinist, only waking up to something like enthusiasm when the infant prodigy, a quaint, painfully shy little creature, who bobbed a side curtsey at the audience, and looked much too small to tackle the grand piano, appeared and proceeded to execute wonderful things with her ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... servant, stalked forward, booted and fully equipped, my travelling companion—if such a word can at all express the relation between the arrogant young blood, just fresh from assuming the toga virilis, and a modest child of profound sensibilities, but shy and reserved beyond even English reserve. The aged servant, with apparently constrained civility, presented my mother's compliments to him, with a request that he would take breakfast. This he hastily ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... trunks. Fountains threw their bright waters to the roof, and flocks of silver-winged birds flew singing among the flowers, or brooded lovingly above their nests. Doves with gentle eyes cooed among the green leaves, snow-white clouds floated in the sunny shy, and the golden light, brighter than before, shone ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... Boone's son, Daniel Boone, a Pennsylvania youth of English stock, Quaker persuasion, and Baptist proclivities. Seen through a glorifying halo after the lapse of a century and three quarters, he rises before us a romantic figure, poised and resolute, simple, benign—as naive and shy as some wild thing of the primeval forest—five feet eight inches in height, with broad chest and shoulders, dark locks, genial blue eyes arched with fair eyebrows, thin lips and wide mouth, nose of slightly Roman cast, and fair, ruddy ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... Atlas-like, sustains the burden of the Finances, for five years long? (Till May, 1781.) Without wages, for he refused such; cheered only by Public Opinion, and the ministering of his noble Wife. With many thoughts in him, it is hoped;—which, however, he is shy of uttering. His Compte Rendu, published by the royal permission, fresh sign of a New Era, shows wonders;—which what but the genius of some Atlas-Necker can prevent from becoming portents? In Necker's head too there is a whole pacific French Revolution, of its kind; and in ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... on the estate had told him something of his father's highly-coloured histories of his feats of strength and his achievements by land and water, the boy began to feel a shy admiration for him, but at the same time he felt all the more strongly the intolerable yoke which he laid upon them—upon every living being on the estate. It became a secret religion with him to oppose his father ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... of the moment, after being knocked down by the shock, they may have suspected that we knew of their presence and were trying to encompass their destruction. But I am glad it happened that way. Perhaps they may have more respect for Uncle Sam's Flying Squadron after this, and fight shy of running their heads into trouble. I'll have the guards at the camp doubled at night time, and any straggler will be apt to find it pretty warm around there: I'd advise all persons who have no business at our headquarters to give the camp a wide berth, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... when we sympathise with a suffering friend. And yet it is something—oh yes, I have felt that! But you knew I must feel for you, if I teased you with words or not; and I, for my part, hearing of you from others, felt shy, as I say, till I heard you were better, of writing to you myself. And you are feeling better, Mrs. Jameson tells me, and are somewhat more cheerful about your state. I thank ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Birdalone silent, blushing and confused, but whiles casting shy glances at her own body, what she might see of it. At last she spake: Fair friend, I would do thy will, but I am not deft of speech; for I speak but little, save with the fowl and wild things, and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... me to have it confirmed by external evidence. Do not think our grief unreasonable. Of all human beings whom I ever knew, he was the man of the most rational desires, the most sedate habits, and the most perfect self-command. He was modest and gentle, and shy even to disease; but this was wearing off. In every thing his judgments were sound and original; his taste in all the arts, music and poetry in particular (for these he, of course, had had the best opportunities of being familiar with), was exquisite; and his eye for the beauties ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... sed ther mother, 'kiss the gentleman for the gift.' Would yer believe it, Jim, thet shy girl come and put her arms around my neck ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... they never shook hands with a lady, and that the poor man was very much embarrassed. He was very useful to W. as a political agent, as he was kind to the poor people and took small (or no) fees. They all loved him, and talked to him quite freely. His women-kind were very shy and provincial. I think our visits were a great trial to them. They always returned them most punctiliously, and came in all their best clothes. When we went to see them we generally found them in short black ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... but of a more sweet and motherly kind, lights the face of the Madonna della Scala. The composition is somewhat in the portrait style, showing the mother in half length, seated under a sort of canopy. The babe clings closely to her neck, turning about at the spectator with a glance half shy and half mischievous. His coyness awakens a smile of tender amusement in the ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... laughin' en jokin'. Our w'ite folks, dee des spized 'im kaze he bin wid Sherman army. Dee say he wuz Yankee; but I tell um, suh, dat ef Yankee look dat away dee wuz cert'n'y mighty like we-all. Mistiss, she ain' never go 'bout 'im wiles he sick; en Miss Lady, she keep mighty shy, en she tu'n up her nose eve'y time she year 'im laugh. Oh, yes, suh; dee cert'n'y spize de Yankees endurin' er dem times. Dee hated um rank, suh. I tell um, I say: 'You-all des wait. Dee ain' no nicer man dan w'at he is, en you-all des wait tell you know 'im.' Shoo! I des might ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... hauteur with hauteur, but I was not sure it would work here, and I trembled inwardly while I spoke so calmly. But it did. Her lids dropped for a moment, and a soft color stole up to her temples. When she lifted her eyes again, there was a sweet, shy light ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... often seek the company of persons. There are some birds, you know, that seem happy only when they are near people. Of course, they are somewhat shy, but as a rule they prefer to be near people. While the Skylark does not seek to be near persons, yet it is not afraid ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... of the answer, given in a shy voice, astonished him. It was his turn to be embarrassed and he strove to turn the ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... stealing lightly over the Connecticut hills, a shy, tender thing of delicate green winging its way with witch-rod over the wooded ridges and the sylvan paths of Diane Westfall's farm. And with the spring had come a great hammering by the sheepfold and the stables where a smiling horde of metropolitan workmen, sheltered ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... died long ago. He had been a comfort to my mother Marie, in days of sadness,—before my birth, for she was never sad after I came,—and she loved him, and he clung to her. He was a round-faced boy, with hair almost white; awkward and shy, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... do, and lived to see Kirstie grow to be a decent, religiously minded young woman. Nor did the lass want for good looks in a sober way, nor for wit when it came to reading books; but in speech she was shy beyond reason, and would turn red and stammer if a stranger but addressed her. I think she could never forget that her birth had been on the wrong side of the blanket, and, supposing folks to be pitying her for it, sought to ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... after a bit"—here Pilot Matthey turned to me with one of those shy smiles which, as they reveal his childish, simple heart, compel you to love the man. "It struck me after a bit that a hemn-tune mightn't come amiss to a man in that distress of mind. So I pitched to sing that grand old tune, 'Partners of a glorious hope,' ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in his face. He did not know whether he dared to laugh or not, and was too much afraid to try. The girl was aware of his embarrassment and became shy in her turn. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even before those who knew him best, and whom he loved the most; but at last it burst forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking eloquence he declared that he could not, would not, bear this misery ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... know," she said, "what it is. It seems as though I'd been here before. It looks so familiar to me—so good—" She went closer to where, still holding out the rain-coat, he stood on the other side of a table strewn with papers. She leaned on this, fingering a pen and looking at him with a shy eagerness. She was struggling, as so often, with an indefinable feeling which she had no words to express. "Don't you know," she went on, "every once in a while you see somebody—an old man or woman, perhaps, on the street cars, in the street—and somehow the ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... clergyman from Doughty Street, who suddenly found himself a member of the most brilliant circle ever gathered under an English roof. In old age he used to declare, to the amusement of his friends, that as a young man he had been shy, but had wrestled with the temptation and overcome it. As regards the master[25] of Holland House, it was not easy to be shy in the presence of "that frank politeness which at once relieved all the embarrassment ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... learning taught; in speech Right gentle, yet so wise; princely of mien, Yet softly mannered; modest, deferent, And tender-hearted, though of fearless blood: No bolder horseman in the youthful band E'er rode in gay chase of the shy gazelles; No keener driver of the chariot In mimic contest scoured the palace courts: Yet in mid-play the boy would oft-times pause, Letting the deer pass free; would oft-times yield His half-won race because the laboring steeds Fetched painful breath; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... queer story going about as to some diamonds. No one knows whom they belong to, and they say that Fawn has accused her of stealing them. He wants to get hold of them, and she won't give them up. I believe the lawyers are to have a shy at it. I'm sorry for Fawn. It'll do ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... fight shy of him, miss, you may remember this,—that you will fight shy of me at the ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... but apparently only had a dim understanding of it (among physiologists this condition, when the subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical blindness). After a little while, growing accustomed to his surroundings, Ryabovitch saw clearly and began to observe. As a shy man, unused to society, what struck him first was that in which he had always been deficient—namely, the extraordinary boldness of his new acquaintances. Von Rabbek, his wife, two elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac dress, and the young man ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in the laboratory, then went downstairs. Two other guests had meanwhile arrived, and were conversing with the hostess, Miss Moxey. The shy, awkward, hard-featured girl was grown into a woman whose face made such declaration of intellect and character that, after the first moment, one became indifferent to its lack of feminine beauty. As if with the idea of compensating for personal disadvantages, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... is as like the mother as possible in features. Her round face is quaintly framed in a close lace-trimmed cap. She is a shy little creature, and is rather afraid of the strange painter. So she keeps as far as possible in the shelter of her mother's big sleeve. The hour drags wearily by. The studio is a dull place, and the sunshine without ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... brief, contracted, terse, concise, condensed, sententious, laconic, succinct, summary, epigrammatic, pithy; limited, inadequate, insufficient, deficient, scanty; abrupt, curt, uncivil; lacking, shy, unsupplied; crisp, friable, brittle. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... these gentry assumed the character of a poor cripple, and stationed himself as a beggar, sweeping the crossing near the habitation of his shy cock, who, conceiving himself safe after three days voluntary imprisonment, was seized by the supposed Beggar, who threw away his broom ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... later, when Hairy Ben had started back up the river, the routine at the post was broken by the arrival of a small party of Kakisa Indians from the Kakisa or Swan River, a large unexplored stream off to the north-west. The Kakisas, an uncivilized and shy race, rarely appeared at Enterprise, and in order to get their trade Gaviller had formerly sent out a half-breed clerk to the Swan River every winter. But this man had lately died, and now the trade threatened to lapse for the lack of an interpreter. None of the ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... not rude, Miss Goff; but I find you very shy. You want to run away and hide from new faces and new surroundings." Alice, who was self-possessed and even overbearing in Wiltstoken society, felt that she was misunderstood, but did not know how to vindicate herself. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... power, of the Lianhan Shee, by, driving its victim out of the parish. The opinion of these persons was, in its distinct unvarnished reality, that Father Felix absolutely showed the white feather on this critical occasion—that he became shy, and begged leave to decline being introduced to this intractable pair—seeming to intimate that he did not at all relish adding them to ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... as he was esteemed by myself and others who knew him well, I will not say that he was a universal favourite. Men did not understand him: at that time of life (alas, why not always?) most of us are open and free-hearted; they did not relish his shy and reserved manner, his unwillingness to take the initiative in any social intercourse, his exigeance to a certain extent of those forms which the freedom of college friendship is apt to neglect. "Why didn't you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... master:(9) he was not cruel, thoughhe was reproached with being so, but—what perhaps was worse— he was cold and, in good as in evil, unimpassioned. In the tumult of battle he faced the enemy fearlessly; in civil life he was a shy man, whose cheek flushed on the slightest occasion; he spoke in public not without embarrassment, and generally was angular, stiff, and awkward in intercourse. With all his haughty obstinacy he was— as indeed persons ordinarily are, who make a display of their ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... old. Mother, who could generally be counted on for tenderness even when she failed to "understand," rather unfortunately centred on the wasp detail—why had Missy just stood there and let it keep stinging her? And Missy felt shy at trying to explain it was because the wasp was stinging her LEG. Mother would be sure to remark this sudden show of modesty in one she'd just been scolding for the lack of it—for riding the ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... she had leaned on his strength with a profound relief. It was hard to have Dan withdraw into his shell just as she was beginning to long for his presence; but he had withdrawn, and like most naturally shy and reticent people, withdrawn farther than ever, as if in reaction ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us, quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... stars! O lovely stars! O lovely stars in the sky! Your eyes are bright, your eyes are bright, and yet you are wondrous shy! ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... lady, looking at the Lamb. She looked rather shy, but, as the boys put it, there didn't seem to be ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... ignorance of War Office organization — His lack of acquaintance with many matters in connection with the existing organization of the army — His indisposition to listen to advice on such subjects — Lord K. shy of strangers — His treatment of the Territorial Forces — Their weak point at the outset of hostilities, not having the necessary strength to mobilize at war establishment — Effect of this on the general plans ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... that at last poor wrangling Stephen, for want of play-fellows, had no other diversion left for him, but to take a solitary ramble through the fields. His parents being informed of the disagreeable situation into which he had brought himself, and what a shy reception he met with from all the boys in the neighbourhood, thought it adviseable, after giving him a strict caution to behave in a more peaceable manner for the future, to remove him to a genteel boarding school, at a distance from home. If he had thought proper to follow their advice, ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... Procter as I first saw her on one of my early visits to her father's house. She was a shy, bright girl, and the poet drew my attention to her as she sat reading in a corner of the library. Looking at the young maiden, intent on her book, I remembered that exquisite sonnet in her father's volume, bearing date November, 1825, addressed to the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... now severely feeling the cravings of hunger. During our journey we saw small herds of deer and antelopes, doubtless enticed to the water-courses by the recent rains, and towards night we descried a drove of mustangs upon a swell of the prairie half a mile ahead of us. They were all extremely shy, and although we discharged our rifles at them, not a shot was successful. In the evening we encamped near a water-hole, overspreading an area of some twenty acres, but very shallow. Large flocks of Spanish ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the influential means which a government always has at its command, and of which its agents extend the ramifications from the centre to the extremities, but because the proposition was in accordance with the wishes of the majority. The Republicans were rather shy in avowing principles with which people were now disenchanted;—the partisans of a monarchy without distinction of family saw their hopes almost realised in the Consulate for life; the recollection of the Bourbons still lived in some ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... with one of his inimitable little apologetic smiles. It was some time before he replied. The mere memory of the adventure had suffused his shy face with blushes, and his brown eyes sought the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... manor-house, with its black oak panels and its wild stone-walled park along the river-side was, from year's end to year's end, innocent of all petticoats, save those of Cicely and old Miss Tring, the governess. Then, too, the boy was shy. No, there was nothing in his past, of not yet quite nineteen years, to go by. He was not of those youths who are always thinking of conquests. The very idea of conquest seemed to him vulgar, mean, horrid. There must be many signs indeed before it would come into his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... uneasy, and before long her uneasiness communicated itself to Finn, who immediately began to think of the worst things he knew of—men in leathern coats, iron-barred cages, and the like. All this made the Wolfhound more shy than ever where Bill was concerned, and more like a creature of the real wild in all his movements and general demeanour. He slept a little farther from the gunyah now, and relied almost entirely upon his own hunting for food. Still, he had no wish to leave the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... thought of a good many things in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, and I got a lesson about time better than anything Kant and all the rest of them have to say of it. After I had been there about an ordinary lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew that our shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning me in the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat tired with ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... set down at the end of the last paragraph drifted me somewhat from the regular thread of my narrative. This, perhaps, is not the only reason why I should stumble and shy along like a balky palfrey when I approach one of the trifling accidents which transpired immediately after our ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Lois during the next week. Amanda had lived entirely alone for over twenty years; this admitting another to her own territory seemed as grave a matter to her as the admission of foreigners did to Japan. Indeed, all her kind were in a certain way foreigners to Amanda; and she was shy of them, she had so withdrawn herself by her solitary life, for solitariness is the farthest country ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... there a stone-quarry; and if they had strength and time to go far enough, they reached a waterfall, where the beck fell over some rocks into the "bottom." They seldom went downwards through the village. They were shy of meeting even familiar faces, and were scrupulous about entering the house of the very poorest uninvited. They were steady teachers at the Sunday-School, a habit which Charlotte kept up very faithfully, even after she was left alone; but they never faced their kind voluntary, and always preferred ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in her prime; that is, between 36 and 55. She has what is called a well-bred air, dressing very carefully to produce that effect without the least regard for the latest fashions, sure of herself, very terrifying to the young and shy, fastidious to the ends of her long finger-tips, and tolerant and amused rather ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... tete-a-tete. We sent for our dinner, and paid share and share alike. He was at that time employed on his Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, which was his first work. When this was finished, the difficulty was to find a bookseller who would take it. The booksellers of Paris are shy of every author at his beginning, and metaphysics, not much then in vogue, were no very inviting subject. I spoke to Diderot of Condillac and his work, and I afterwards brought them acquainted with each other. They were worthy of each ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... more than a convenience; it was a comfort which rose almost to the height of a consolation. Probably the most universally desired comfort of the Confederate soldier was "something to eat." But this, like all greatly desired blessings, was shy, and when obtained was, to the average seeker, not replete ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... a hermitage are naturally shy and reserved; but for all that She did look towards me, though she quick withdrew Her stealthy glances when she met my gaze; She smiled upon me sweetly, but disguised With maiden grace the secret of her smiles. Coy love was ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... my porridge, I weary of my play; No longer can I sleep at night, No longer romp by day! Though forty pounds was once my weight, I'm shy of thirty now; I pine, I wither and I fade Through love ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... occasionally drop in of an evening, though they preferred taking her out to ride where they could see her away from her home. But the more respectable young men, with anxious mothers and sisters, were rather shy of poor Rose, and none seemed to care to go beyond a mild flirtation with a girl whose father was "on the rampage," as they expressed it, most of the time. On one occasion, when she had two young friends spending the evening, her father ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... customary composure, as a well-bred man, deserted him; he bowed confusedly; he had not a word to say. Mrs. Presty seized her opportunity, and introduced them to each other. "My daughter Mrs. Norman—Captain Bennydeck." Compassionating him under the impression that he was a shy man, Catherine tried to set him at his ease. "I am indeed glad to have an opportunity of thanking you," she said, inviting him by a gesture to be seated. "In this delightful air, I have recovered my health, and I ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... Beltane gazed upon her shy, sweet loveliness, what time her bosom rose and fell tempestuous, and she bowed ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... flowers, madam," said I. "I saw that you had forgotten them, and I took them as mementoes of you and your sweet children." She blushed and looked disconcerted. She was evidently unused to people, and shy with all but her children. However, she ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... his book, the angler will do well to have a store of very small trout-flies at hand, while experience has shown that even the dry fly will kill sea-trout on occasion, a thing that is worth remembering where rivers are low and fish shy. July, August and September are in general the best months for sea-trout, and as they are dry months the angler often has to put up with indifferent sport. The fish will, however, rise in tidal water and in a few localities even in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... snowed and froze, and looked dreary enough within the darkening walls of the fort. A French missionary had come down from the northern lake of Isle-a-la-Crosse, but, unlike his brethren, he appeared shy and uncommunicative. Two of the stories which he related, however, deserve record. One was a singular magnetic storm which took place at Isle-a-la-Crosse during the preceding winter. A party of Indians and half-breeds were crossing the lake on the ice when suddenly their ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... Wilhelmina's part with this view; but the notablest is still to mention: that of stirring up, by Voltaire's means, an important-looking Cardinal de Tencin to labor in the business. Eminency Tencin lives in Lyon, known to the Princess on her Italian Tour;—shy of asking Voltaire to dinner on that fine occasion,—but, except Officially, is not otherwise than well-affected to Voltaire. Was once Chief Minister of France, and would fain again be; does not like these Bernis novelties and Austrian Alliances, had he now any power to overset ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... been objurgating straight ahead all this time, now weighed anchor and put the boat in towards shore. Silence fell upon the company. They seemed very shy of each other, and did not amalgamate at all. Mr. P. went out to the extreme end of the bowsprit and gazed down into the deep blue sea, wondering whether its color was really due to excess of salt, or the presence of cuprate of ammonia. HORACE climbed to the top ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... about. He sat up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed and Nanny putting things into a travelling bag. He felt as if his Mother looked taller than she had looked yesterday—and almost thin—and her face was anxious and—shy. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... funny, on one side, and on the other it isn't. There's a good deal to support their attitude. Phil's needs are those of a girl ready to meet the world, and she will need money. And I've noticed that money is a shy commodity; it doesn't just come ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... didn't speak; it was to set on fire the tongues of other speakers. There was a coloured print over the mantelpiece of Moses smiting the rock. What a solemn contrast to the streams of fire-water soon about to flow! John Gubbins sat at the top of the table, looking fat and anxious, half shy and half foolish; the man with the false hair and ornaments placed himself next to him. Three other strangers were present, a mixture of sham gentility and swagger, of whom it would be difficult to say which had descended into the lowest depths of blackguardism. And ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... most hospitably received, but the native wife, as is usually the case, was too shy to eat with us or even to appear at all. Our host is a superb young man, very frank and prepossessing looking, a thorough mountaineer, most expert with the lasso and in hunting wild cattle. The "station" consists of a wool shed, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... stenches, and swarming with half-naked children and whole worlds of dirty people—make up, altogether, such a scene of wonder: so lively, and yet so dead: so noisy, and yet so quiet: so obtrusive, and yet so shy and lowering: so wide awake, and yet so fast asleep: that it is a sort of intoxication to a stranger to walk on, and on, and on, and look about him. A bewildering phantasmagoria, with all the inconsistency of a dream, and all the pain and all the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... he began to study his "Portion," for on the first Sabbath of his thirteenth year he would be summoned, as a man, to the recitation of the Sacred Scroll, only instead of listening, he would have to intone a section from the parchment manuscript, bare of vowels and musical signs. The boy was shy, and the thought of appearing brazenly on the platform before the whole congregation was terrifying. Besides, he might make mistakes in the words or the tunes. It was an anxious time, scarcely redeemed by the thought of new clothes, "Son-of-the-Commandment" presents, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... words Zac turned towards the maid; she looked up at him with a shy glance and showed such a pretty face, such black eyes and smiling lips, that Zac for a moment hesitated, feeling quite paralyzed by an overflow of bashfulness. But it was not a time to stand on ceremony; and so honest Zac, without more ado, seized the girl in his arms, and bore ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... best by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types; girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and then I ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... town solely for his pleasure, although he was not disposed to shy from any diversion that offered. He had business in hand, business of prime importance since it involved spending a little matter of twelve thousand dollars. In brief, he had to replace the Blackbird, and he was replacing her with a carrier of double the capacity, of greater ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... get up the trap at two minutes' notice, and provided he has patience, and can wait for his little bird, he is almost sure to be rewarded for his pains,—if he wait long enough. This of course depends upon circumstances: when the birds are plenty and are not shy, it is a common thing to secure three or four at once in a very few minutes, while at other times an hour's ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... my dear Sophia," she answered in a shy tremulous way, clinging a little closer to Mr. Granger's arm. It was at Mill Cottage that this conversation took place, a few days before the wedding. "There can scarcely be a question of duty between people of the same age, like you and me. But I hope we shall ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... much of her now since you've come to your head, I reckon she'll be passin' you over to me to look after. She's shy that way. Yes, sir, any time I git bit up by man or beast, or shot up or knifed, I'll take Rabbit ahead of any doctor you can find. Them Indians they know the secrets of it. I wouldn't be afraid to stand and let a rattlesnake bite ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... arguing over our first principles. If a man persists in talking of what he does not understand, he is put down; if he sports loose views on morals at a decent dinner party, the better sort of people fight shy of him, and he is not invited again; if he profess himself a Buddhist or a Mahometan, it is assumed that he has not adopted those beliefs on serious conviction, but rather in wilful levity and eccentricity ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... person puts his emotion into the grotesque repetitions of a liturgy." I thought to myself that I had made a discovery, and that all was vanity. Well, we thanked the singer gravely enough, and went on, smiling and grimacing, to talk local gossip. A few minutes later, a young girl, very shy and painfully ingenuous, was hauled protesting to the piano. I could see her hands tremble as she arranged her music, and the first chords she struck were halting and timid. Then she began to sing—it was some simple old-fashioned song—what ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the little work of thirty-two pages, he turned back and read parts all over again, a terrific compliment to the shy and retiring author. He closed the book with a long sigh, sat upon his bed for half an hour and then went back to the pine table, took out from the debris of one of the drawers a bottle of ink, a pen and some notepaper and wrote laboriously and carefully, ending the seven or ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... and it was the only one that was fired, for Sinclair's horse was gun-shy indeed. At the explosion he pitched straight into the air with a squeal of mustang fright and came down bucking. The others forgot to look for the results of Lowrie's shot. They reined their horses away from the pitching broncho disgustedly. ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... increasing numbers and incessant excited chirping and chattering at first served to amuse, but in the end began to irritate me. I observed, too, that the alarm was spreading, and that larger birds, usually shy of men—pigeons, jays, and magpies, I fancied they were—now began to make their appearance. Could it be, thought I with some concern, that I had wandered into some uninhabited wilderness, to cause so great a commotion among ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... to be a strong man, but his body was a mass of tireless sinew. His eyes were of that cold, hard blue which is the color of fortitude, his face clean shaven and rather thin; his jaw slightly underhung, his lips narrow and tightly compressed. In demeanor he was quiet and almost shy, but it was the quietness of one who has spent his days in the open, and the shyness of a life which has dealt with simple things in a simple but efficient way. The longer Clark looked at him the more he liked this new discovery. Presently he ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... becomes a drop of water on the warm lips of a child, was the stony form of Inge changed, and as a little bird she soared, with the speed of lightning, upward to the world of mortals. A bird that felt timid and shy to all things around it, that seemed to shrink with shame from meeting any living creature, and hurriedly sought to conceal itself in a dark corner of an old ruined wall; there it sat cowering and unable to utter a sound, for it was voiceless. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... care, CURCUMA cold and shy Meets her fond husband with averted eye: Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move With soft ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. He waited on her again as soon as he had changed his dress; and after a second long and gracious conference, was freely visited by all the lords, ladies, and gentlemen at court, excepting the secretary and his party, who appeared somewhat shy of him. But all these fair appearances quickly vanished. On revisiting the queen in the evening, he found her much changed towards him; she began to call him to account for his unauthorised return and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... so. Dr Tempest himself was a man peculiarly capable of exercising the functions of a judge in such a matter, had he sat alone as a judge; but he was one who would be almost sure to differ from others who sat as equal assessors with him. Mr Oriel was a gentleman at all points; but he was very shy, very reticent, and altogether uninstructed in the ordinary daily intercourse of man with man. Any one knowing him might have predicted of him that he would be sure on such an occasion as this to be found floundering in a sea of doubts. Mr Quiverful was the father of a large ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... had a blue print frock, and a little round face. She had pretty shy eyes that looked out from beneath a shock of curly hair. The little King was very pretty too. And he liked to play with dolls, which I always think is a nice trait of character in ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... trip was marred by the black sorrow that fell upon him when informed of his illegitimate birth. "I was mad from the time I was told of my birth," he wrote, and until madness supervened he suffered from a "wounded imagination." He was morbid, shy, and irritable, and his energy—the explosive energy of this frail youth was amazing; because he had been refused the use of a ship boat he wasted three months digging out a canoe from a log of wood. Like Paul Gauguin, he saw many countries, and his eyes were trained to form, though not ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... dazzling. She seemed to him taller, and freer in all her movements. She had now a way of taking a deep breath when she was interested, that made her seem very strong, somehow, and brought her at one quite overpoweringly. If he seemed shy, it was not that he was intimidated by her worldly clothes, but that her greater positiveness, her whole augmented self, made him feel that his accustomed ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... unfrequently traveled road, I met a little boy and girl, walking towards me, hand in hand. They were crying. When they saw me, they wiped their eyes and stopped. I saw they were poorly clad, and, somewhat dirty. I became interested in them, but they were so shy that it was with difficulty I got them to remain. They looked at the coppers I held out, but they did not move until I placed a silver piece beside them. Their eyes rounded out, then, and the little girl became ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... something about him," she said. "Is he shy before strangers? I heard you whispering with him on the other side of the door. Are you jealous, Anne? Are you afraid I shall fascinate him ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... their footsteps had died away and then went very slowly down the first flight, fastening her belt. She stopped at the landing window, tucking the frayed end of the petersham under the frame of the buckle... they were all downstairs, liking her. She could not face them. She was too excited and too shy. ... She had never once thought of their "feeling" her going away... saying goodbye to each one... all minding and sorry—even the servants. She glanced fearfully out into the garden, seeing nothing. Someone called up from ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... just a case of "penny in the slot." You should reflect that no evasive bird Is half so shy as is your fittest word; And even similes, however wrought, Like hares, before you cook them, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... her own idea held her. Her own idea was, by insisting on the fact of the girl's prominence as a feature of the season's end, to keep Densher in relation, for the rest of them, both to present and to past. "It's everything that has happened since that makes you naturally a little shy about her. You don't know what has happened since, but we do; we've seen it and followed it; we've a little been of it." The great thing for him, at this, as Kate gave it, was in fact quite irresistibly that the case was a real one—the kind of thing that, when one's patience was shorter ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... but this thing has come a little between them. She has grown shy of going out, while he must be in the world; and all her life seems to vanish when he is away. Sometimes it makes my heart ache to think how much she ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... think we're babies? Here, shy us the reins. Come along, you fellows, there's room for all three on the box. Now then, Joe, give her her head. Come up, you beast! Swish! See if we don't make her ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... exemplified by the one now visited. But even unkempt and uncared for, what a picture it made! It was the realisation of a poetic death—the victim smothered by roses beside the singing waters of a brook. It was a long time before any one came, and the two visitors sat in the verandah feeling rather shy and uncomfortable, for this was the neighbour's first visit, and the native, who had ushered them in, vanished, sending weird cries around the tangled garden paths as though to summon his ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... The hippopotamus, with his shy and secluded habits, may be easily passed as he lies concealed among the reeds which grow by the side of the river, but if once he gets into the water, he is always to be detected by the blowing ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... occupy the brain, Vague prophecies which fill the ear, Dim perturbation, precious pain, A gleam of hope, a chill of fear,— These vex the poet's spirit. Moral:— Have a shy at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... niece was with her, and Meynell, while talking to the aunt either of his people or of the progress of the heresy campaign, was always keenly aware of the girlish figure beside her—of the quick, shy smile—the voice ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... burgesses of Oxford, who have assembled in your thousands to hear—" Bunny began once more, but the rude man shouted that he was not at a concert, and when he wanted to listen to the same thing over and over again he was not too shy to ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... young lady's mind that Christie's constant study of her little Bible had something to do with her being so different from any one she had ever known before. But both of them were a little shy about speaking of these things. They talked about the histories, and even about the doctrines, of the Bible. The stories that little Claude so delighted in all came from the Bible; and Christie had no shyness in speaking to him. To these stories, and the simple ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... of Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson's presence[775].' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek poet[776], ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... to face me: be women no more; But fellow-men born, from top branch to the core; Men who must fight—who can kill, who can die, While women once more shall be covered and shy. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the Old Pasture just as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had crept out of bed, and he had fully made up his mind that he would be back in the Green Forest before Mr. Sun had climbed very far up in the blue, blue sky. You see, big as he is and strong as he is, Buster Bear is very shy and bashful, and he has no desire to meet Farmer Brown, or Farmer Brown's boy, or any other of those two-legged creatures called men. It seems funny but he actually is afraid of them. And he had a feeling that he was a great ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... whatever it cost her, Rosalie determined she would go. But she grew more and more shy as she drew nearer the village, and walked far more slowly than she had done when ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... well says of her, "Her sense, energy, lightness, and quickness of action; her thorough knowledge of the work, her amazing yet simple resources, her shy humility which made her regard her own work with impatience, almost with contempt—all this and much else make her memory a source of strength and tenderness which nothing can take away." Elsewhere, the same writer adds, "Strength ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Elijah Clifford actually blushed. But he did, and Miss Gray sat near enough to note it. If Elijah Clifford had not been so embarrassed by the New York man's question he might possibly, if he had been looking in Miss Gray's direction, have seen a new look on her face. A look of shy Admiration that belongs to the border land of another county called Affection, which is a near by state to another called Love. But ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... became conscious that there was something about her different from her mates. And what worried Matthew was that the difference impressed him as being something that should not exist. Anne had a brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and more delicate features than the other; even shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to take note of these things; but the difference that disturbed him did not consist in any of these respects. Then in what ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Sachem's daughter, the Gentle Fawn; she, with a few young Indian girls, half hid among the whortleberry bushes growing luxuriantly around the smaller wigwams of the camp, were dividing their attention between the stately captives and weaving the gaudy wampums to be bestowed, with the shy little weavers themselves, upon such young braves as should be deemed worthy by the great council. Their stolen glances of admiration and pity, however, were intercepted by the young brave who brought home and so suspiciously guarded the prisoners. He was ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... not enough. But nobody minded. Nobody listened. Nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins. She was the kind of person who is not noticed at parties. Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was reluctant; she was shy. And if one's clothes and face and conversation are all negligible, thought Mrs. Wilkins, who recognized her disabilities, what, at parties, ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... changes his colour; He can look like a tree or a wall; He is timid and shy and he hates to be seen, So he simply sits down in the grass and goes green, And pretends he is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... several Huxleys—the artificer in words, the amateur of garbage, pierrot lunaire, the cynic in rag-time, the fastidious sensualist. For my part, I believe only in the last, taking that to be the real Huxley and the rest prank, virtuosity, and, most of all, self-consciousness. As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so Aldous Huxley, nervous by fits at the poise of his own reality, sidesteps with graceful violence into the opposite of himself. There is a beautiful example of this in Mortal Coils. Among the stage-directions to his play, 'Permutations Among the Nightingales,' ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... you, Horace," she murmured, lifting bright, shy eyes. "And I love my beautiful mother, too, ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... to go there. I don't belong there any more than you do here. Better drift back to Tucson, stranger. The parada is no place for a tenderfoot. You're in luck you're not shy one li'l' girl tromped to death. Take a fool's advice and hit the trail for town pronto before you bump into ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... so moved by your work that I at once felt one thing distinctly, viz., that in something so encouraging and deeply touching I could not myself collaborate. I felt as shy and bashful as possible when I thought of writing with my own hand the praise which you dictated to me in your extremely brilliant article. I hesitated and wavered, and did not know how to begin. Then my young friend Ritter came to my ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... gone. You did not intend it to go, you did not set yourself to banish it, you simply opened the door to the flocking in of the whole crowd of the world's cares and occupations, and away went the shy, solitary thought that, if it had been cared for and tended, might have led you at last to the Cross of Jesus Christ. Do not allow yourselves to be drifted, by the rushing current of earthly cares, from the impressions that are made upon your consciences and from the duty ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... one had told Paul this was going to happen to him, this experience, he would have laughed them to scorn. To begin with, he was rather shy with ladies as a rule, and had not learnt a trick of entreprenance. It took him quite a while to know one well enough to even talk at ease. And yet here he was, embarked upon an adventure which savoured ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... to see that, however painted and shaped, she was made of very common clay, and would never be able to take her place amongst the porcelain maidens to whom Gabriel was accustomed. Still she seemed modest and shy as a maid should be, and Dr Pendle looked ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... it would be quite wise, if I may venture to express an opinion," said Miss Acton, who was a timid soul, and always inclined to shy at her own ideas. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the bear and the sultan; and addressing the latter, he said: 'Your sublime highness will hear him presently; be pleased to give him a little time. Let him not be harshly judged, if he is a little timid and shy. This is his first attempt ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... in procedure that our legislation is least efficient. Having little knowledge of the subject, legislatures have been shy of meddling with court rules and processes; while the very fact that the legislatures have taken unto themselves the right so to interfere, has seemed to impress both bench and bar with a certain sense of irresponsibility. ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... up of Judson. My father did not make a step until he was sure of what the next one would be. That is why the supreme court never reversed his decisions. When at last he had perfected his plans, Tell Mapleson grew shy of pushing his claims. But Tell was a shrewd pettifogger, and his was a different calibre of mind from Judson's. It was not until my father was about to lay claim in his client's behalf to the valuable piece of land containing the big cottonwood and the haunted cabin, that ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... wished for the presence of his fellow-traveller, though at other times wont rather to avoid his society: for on this evening he was about to disclose a secret to him, and beg for his advice. The timid, shy Emilius found in every business and accident of life so many difficulties, such insurmountable hindrances, that it might seem to have been an ironical whim of his destiny which brought him and Roderick together, Roderick being in everything the reverse of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... an please your Grace," said Dennet, who fortunately was not in the least shy, and was still too young for a maiden's shamefastness. "He is to be my betrothed. I would say, one of them is, but the other—he ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... get on well, after a good sleep on camp bed with air mattress; roused at eight by a letter from you. I went to bed at eleven. At Koeniggraetz I rode the big sandy thirteen hours in the saddle without feeding him He bore it very well, did not shy at shots nor at corpses, cropped standing grain and plum-leaves with zest at the most trying moments, and kept up an easy gait to the last, when I was more tired than the horse. My first bivouac for the night was on the street pavement of Horic, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... night to the dark camp of King Rhesus, who had no watch- fire and no guards. Then Diomede silently stabbed each sleeping man to the heart, and Ulysses seized the dead by the feet and threw them aside lest they should frighten the horses, which had never been in battle, and would shy if they were led over the bodies of dead men. Last of all Diomede killed King Rhesus, and Ulysses led forth his horses, beating them with his bow, for he had forgotten to take the whip from the chariot. Then Ulysses and Diomede leaped on the backs of the horses, as they ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... purchase, the West was flooded with wild-cat money, and specie was very scarce. The brig was sold by order of the Chancellor of Michigan, and specie demanded from the purchaser, a condition that made buyers shy. In 1842, Mr. Scott purchased the schooner John Grant, of 100 tons, and in the following three years added to his little fleet the schooner Panama, of 100 tons, and the brig Isabella, of over 300 tons, the latter being ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... undoubtedly by Donatello, and may have been added as an afterthought. Two stand on either side of the curved tympanum, clinging to each other as they look downwards, and afraid of falling over the steep precipice. Their attitude is shy and timid, as Leonardo said was advisable when making little children standing still.[150] Though unnecessary, their presence on the relief is justified by Donatello's skill and humour. In the great reliefs at Padua, Siena and Lille he ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... persuade her to lunch with us," said Mrs. Maynard, "but she would not do so. She was very shy and timid, and though very glad to have the ride, she was unwilling to let us do more for her. She had many errands to attend to, and she was sure of a ride home, so she said we need not worry ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... would think. Knox at least survived her; and we possess his epigraph to their long intimacy, given to the world by him in an appendix to his latest publication. I have said in a former paper that Knox was not shy of personal revelations in his published works. And the trick seems to have grown on him. To this last tract, a controversial onslaught on a Scottish Jesuit, he prefixed a prayer, not very pertinent to the matter in hand, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beginning of Meigg's Wharf there was a house of entertainment that no doubt had a history and a mystery even in those young days. We never quite comprehended it: we were too young for that, and too shy and too well-bred to make curious or impertinent inquiry. We sometimes stood at the wide doorway—it was forever invitingly open, —and looked with awe and amazement at paintings richly framed and hung so close together that no bit ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... next few minutes I found that some of the shy mountain women were beginning to hover about me, and in another ten minutes I had laid the foundations of an export rug and quilt business that I have a feeling will ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Nehemoth passes on through the other Audience Chambers and receives, perhaps, some Sheikhs of the Arab folk who have crossed the great desert from the West, or receives an embassy sent to do him homage from the shy jungle people to the South. And all the while the slaves with the ringing palanquin run westwards, following the sun, and ever the sun shines straight into the chamber where Nehemoth sits, and all the while the music from one or other of his bands of musicians comes tinkling to his ears. But ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... walked up to the town, he felt shy and afraid of being seen, and took the back streets—why, he didn't know, but he followed his instinct. At the School-gates he made a dead pause; there was not a soul in the quadrangle—all was lonely, and silent, and sad. So with another effort he strode through ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... ordered me to get out the carriage and fetch two new visitors from the station. It was in the middle of the afternoon; apparently he had just got up. But he put me in an awkward position here—why had he not gone to Nils? It struck me that he was perhaps, after all, a little shy of Nils with ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... French students of sociology, Professor Letourneau has long stood in the first rank. He approaches the great study of man free from bias and shy of generalisations. To collect, scrutinise, and appraise facts is his ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... letters for him since one of the clerks has been ill. My father says she can cook like a Frenchwoman, and that is something. As for Joost, it is surely of little importance to him, he is too quiet to say anything to her; she talks little; she must be shy." ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... full of delicate subtleties and dreamy glimpses of shy humane wisdom. The manner in which outward things—the mere background and scenery of the play—are used to deepen and enhance the dramatic interest is a thing peculiarly characteristic of this author. Tchekoff has that kind of imaginative sensibility which makes every material ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... in the sassafras all out of sight The Blackbird is splitting his slender bill For the ease of his heart: Do you think if he said "I will sing like this bird with the mud colored back And the two little spots of gold over his eyes, Or like to this shy little creature that flies So low to the ground, with the amethyst rings About her small throat—all alive when she sings With a glitter of shivering green—for the rest, Gray shading to gray, with the sheen of her breast Half rose and half fawn— Or like this one so proud, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... I left unattempted or said, That might soften the Heart of this pitiless Maid; But still she was shy, And would blushing deny, Whilst her willinger Eyes gave her ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... could settle a score of quarrels with such besotted creatures as the four he had put to rout so lately, and be no manner the worse for it himself. He was not at all sorry for the adventure. He felt a flutter of pride and pleasure in the shy glances shot at him from the dark eyes beneath the crimson hood. He had made of himself a hero in the eyes of pretty Rosamund, and he liked that experience ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Is dawn a secret shy and cold Anadyomene, silver-gold? And sunset still a golden sea From Haslingfield to Madingley? And after, ere the night is born, Do hares come out about the corn? Oh, is the water sweet and cool Gentle and brown, above the pool? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... and woody steeps, thy lake, Its one green island, and its winding shores, The multitude of little rocky hills, Thy church, and cottages of mountain-stone Clustered like stars some few, but single most, 40 And lurking dimly in their shy retreats, Or glancing at each other cheerful looks, Like separated stars with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... being gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one time when he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it would make ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... least prepossessing of all the inhabitants of Aden, and it will be long before any confidence can be placed in them. They religiously conceal their women, and are a bigoted, prejudiced race, disaffected of course to the new government, and shy of ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... Mm and Copper slipped quietly into the office. She looked at him curiously, a faint half-shy smile ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... think he is a little," Cassandra replied. "Queer, but very fascinating. I shall read Milton to-night. It's been one of the happiest nights of my life, Katharine," she added, looking with shy devotion at her cousin's ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the river: then strike gently, and hold your rod at a bent, a little while; but if you both pull together, you are sure to lose your game, for either your line, or hook, or hold, will break: and after you have overcome them, they will make noble sport, and are very shy to be landed. The Carp is far stronger and ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... fellow, better and better as we see him more. Something shy and skittish in the man; but a brave heart intrinsically, with sound, earnest sense, with plenty of insight and even humor. He confirms an observation of mine, which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a stammering man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It is an excess ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of her cousins, who gazed at her with stolid eyes; she was tossed to them like a package, with no intermediate state between the wretched chamber at Saint-Jacques and the dining-room of her cousins, which seemed to her a palace. She was shy and speechless. To all other eyes than those of the Rogrons the little Breton girl would have seemed enchanting as she stood there in her petticoat of coarse blue flannel, with a pink cambric apron, thick shoes, blue stockings, and a white kerchief, her hands being covered by red worsted mittens ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... Shy sylvan spirit singing so sweetly, Dancing to measures that flow with your song Frolic your fairy feet faultlessly, fleetly, As down the mountain vale ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... this council and the departure of the army, we saw Yolanda at Castleman's. She was always waiting when we arrived. She had changed in many respects, but especially in her attitude regarding Max. She was kind and gentle, but shy. Having dropped her familiar manner, she did not go near him, but sat at a distance, holding Twonette's hand, and silently but constantly watching him, as if she were awaiting something. Her eyes, at times, seemed to be half-indignant interrogation points. At other ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... "Yes, and"—a shy smile playing around the corners of the girl's mouth—"a telegram received last night reads: 'Coming Thursday; sail March thirtieth; can you ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and facing her across the table, with its low lights and flowers, he felt an extraordinary pleasure in seeing her again in evening dress, and in letting his eyes dwell on the proud shy set of her head, the way her dark hair clasped it, and the girlish thinness of her neck above the slight swell of the breast. His imagination was struck by the quality of reticence in her beauty. She suggested a fine portrait kept ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... knew just what to do, and just how to do it,—how to get into the salon when he arrived, and how to greet his hostess. But the rest knew how to follow suit, and did it, and, though some of them were a little shy at first, not one was confused, and in a few minutes they were all quite at their ease. By the time the brief formality of being received was over, and they were all gathered round the tea-table, the atmosphere had become comfortable and friendly, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... sure you will find it gone and a present in its place in the morning. Perhaps you may even feel the same little soft tickle on your forehead that King Bubi did; but I do not promise for certain that you will see kind Mr. Mouse, because he is rather shy. ...
— Perez the Mouse • Luis Coloma
... go to the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company. He wanted to get the teasing, due him for staying away so short a time, over as soon as possible. The office girl, addressing circulars, seemed surprised when he stepped from the elevator, and blushed her usual shy gratitude to the men of the office for allowing her to exist and take away six ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... throat Burrows, and the speckled stoat; Where the quick sandpipers flit In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown as they: Naught disturbs its quiet way, Save some lazy stork that springs, Trailing it with legs and wings, Whom the shy fox from the hill Rouses, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the hall. She was not in any way shy. She seemed to rule all around her with a sort of high-bred dominance, all the more remarkable as she was greatly agitated and as pale as snow. In the great hall were several servants, the men standing together near ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... sees and hears something that is new to him and interests him. In the dense tropical woods near Rio Janeiro I heard in late October—springtime, near the southern tropic—the songs of many birds that I could not identify. But the most beautiful music was from a shy woodland thrush, sombre-colored, which lived near the ground in the thick timber, but sang high among the branches. At a great distance we could hear the ringing, musical, bell-like note, long-drawn and of piercing sweetness, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... birds, white and gray, and with very long legs. Jack took his rifle and tried to creep up on them, but they were too shy, and soared away ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... is very shy, and is always on the alert. Its sense of hearing, of smell, and of sight is very acute, and the most skillful hunter will sometimes search the mountain pastures for days without securing his game. When the troop is grazing, a sentinel is always appointed, who stands on the watch sniffing the air. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... me tired," interrupted Doctor Jack. "Just because you've been mixed up in an accident, you're about to get yourselves locoed, as they say out West, on the subject of automobiles. By careful cultivation, you could learn to shy at a baby carriage and throw a fit at the sight of a wheelbarrow. The time to nip that is ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... it! All of our family have felt for poor Angelica most deeply. And furthermore, she is sensitive about her deafness—which, I may add, was caused by the same accident. And her various misfortunes have made her extremely shy, so the less attention that is paid to her, the happier the ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... have never had any great inclination for play; but after this you may be quite sure that I will light shy of cards altogether. Still, I shall be glad if you will put me up to some of these tricks, for I may be able to some day save a victim of card sharpers, as you have ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... do. I should have pointed out to him as he did wrong last time in going off, and what a lot of injury it did him; and he knew it, or else he wouldn't have kep' it so close, and gone without letting me know. But once bit twice shy, and I'm not going to be bit again. I'm not going to break my heart fancying he's made a hole in the water. That's what set me thinking about the lieutenant as I did. If he wasn't one of the easiest-going bits ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... in its place in the morning. Perhaps you may even feel the same little soft tickle on your forehead that King Bubi did; but I do not promise for certain that you will see kind Mr. Mouse, because he is rather shy. ...
— Perez the Mouse • Luis Coloma
... evening in black bombazine, with a mauve front cut in a shy triangle, and crowned with a black velvet ribbon round the base of her thin throat; black and mauve for evening wear was esteemed very chaste by ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stood beside her after a very creditable break, and she slipped a shy hand into his for a few seconds. His fingers closed upon it in that slow, inevitable way of his, but he neither spoke nor looked at her, and she had a feeling that his attention never for an instant wandered from the job ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Europe, they wonder at our manner of carrying on the war, at our General-in-Chief, who, in the eyes and the judgment of European generals, acts without a plan and without an ensemble; they wonder at the groping and shy general policy, and nevertheless a policy full of contradictions. The Europeans thus astonished are true friends of the North, of the emancipation, and ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... Well, if you are too shy to speak out loud, you may whisper. You see, Aunt, I am not quite such a cipher as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 25, 1893 • Various
... thoughts were of his bride, who still slumbered in their stateroom amidships. In his bachelor days he never had imagined he could find such contentment as had come with his marriage to Ora. He had fought shy of the fair sex on Earth. Somehow, the women he knew back home had bored him; angling for a man's money and position, most of them, and incapable of giving real love and companionship in return for the luxuries they demanded. He was resigned to his ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... not come in the rapid manner fondly expected by John. The nuggets seemed shy. He obtained enough to rub along with, and that was all. The life did not ill suit him. To such a man as Lionel Verner, of innate refinement, just and conscientious, the life would have been intolerable, almost worse than death. John was not overburdened with any one of ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in his appearance; not, no, not at all, in his make-up. He wore, like a thousand city clerks, a high collar, a speckled tie, a straight, dark blue serge suit. But in spite of the stiffness thus imposed on him, he had, unaccountably, the shy, savage beauty of an animal untamed, uncaught. He belonged to the slender, nervous, fair type; but the colour proper to it had been taken out of him by the shop. His head presented the utmost clearness of line compatible with irregularity of outline; and his face (from its heavy square ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... region of the Seres is a vast and populous country, touching on the east the ocean and the limits of the habitable world, and extending west to Imaus and the confines of Bactria. The people are civilized, mild, just and frugal, eschewing collisions with their neighbours, and even shy of close intercourse, but not averse to dispose of their own products, of which raw silk is the staple, but which included also silk-stuffs, fine furs, and iron of remarkable quality." That is manifestly a definition of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... confidence in the hope that some time, a little later, I myself may show her what Christ is to us, and why we love the Bible. But I did fight shy of the real point, for fear I might anger her and put a barrier between us. I just tried to win her confidence and her love, to pave the way for what I may be able to do later on. Do you see? I have had several talks with her, but she is not ready. She is just a child, ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... arranged at the aunt's, with lunch and wine all in due order, and Lipa wore a new pink dress made on purpose for this occasion, and a crimson ribbon like a flame gleamed in her hair. She was pale-faced, thin, and frail, with soft, delicate features sunburnt from working in the open air; a shy, mournful smile always hovered about her face, and there was a childlike look in her ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and very shy, Her jokes aren't in my line; And, worst of all, I'm seventeen While She ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... as we were settled in our new habitations, I sent out parties to discover the haunts of the cattle, some of which were found, but at a great distance from the tents, and the beasts were so shy that it was very difficult to get a shot at them. Some of the parties which, when their haunts had been discovered, were sent out to kill them, were absent three days and nights before they could succeed; and when a bullock had been dragged seven or eight miles through such ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... little about the outward trappings of his priesthood. Catia knew it all; but she held her peace. The Bishop also had held his peace, and a little bit for the same reason that Catia had done. He knew the theological history of Scott Brenton; he knew that, like all half-broken colts, he easily might shy at first sight of the harness; yet, once with the harness on and fitted to his back, he would fall to work in earnest and pull steadily with the best of them. And it was the pulling that the Bishop wished, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... I was entirely to blame, even though I did feel shy at first," she defended herself with some hesitation. "Couldn't you have sent for me, even if you didn't want to come yourself? The footmen were going about constantly ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... at the glorious girl beside him, whose eyes already fluttered away from his like shy black butterflies. Suddenly he squeezed the soft hand in his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... gleefully. "I'd always rather fight than run away, Harry, lad—at least, when it's anything like a fair match; so let's rouse up the pop-gun and have a shy at 'em." ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... length. The plumage of the adults is pure white, with black primaries. The bare parts of the head and face are carmine. It is a very locally distributed species, in some sections being practically unknown, while in a neighboring locality it may be rated as common. They are very shy birds and are not easily obtained. They nest either upon the solid earth or in marshy places over the water. In either case the nest is a very bulky mass of grass and weeds from two to three feet in diameter and raised perhaps a foot above the ground. They lay two eggs of a brownish buff color, ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Sally and the staggerer wended their way overland to the same rendezvous slowly—remarkably slowly. They had so much to talk about; not of politics, you may be sure, nor yet of love, for they were somewhat shy of that, being, so ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Memorial will not be the most despised among them, for it expresses, even if it over-expresses, a not ignoble idea, and if it somewhat stutters and stammers, it does at last get it out; it does not stand mum, like the different shy, bashful columns stuck here and there, and not able to say what they would ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... son! Herman Brudenell, I always hated you, but now I scorn you! Twenty odd years ago I would have killed you, only I didn't want to kill your soul as well as your body, nor likewise to be hanged for you! And now I would shy this stick of wood at your head only that I don't want Reuben Gray to have the mortification of seeing his wife took up for assault! But I hate you, Herman Brudenell! And I despise you! There! take yourself out of ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to make it for you. Now next term, when you are one of the mistresses at Oakwood House and living at their table and you have soup, you'll be able to say—for you must speak up when you are with them, dear child, and not be shy—you'll be able to tell them what delicious soup you always get at your Uncle Colonel Pyke Pounce's. Be sure to mention your Uncle by name, Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., not just 'my uncle,' and that he was a great deal in India where he was entirely responsible ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... admission. Now Janet was not one whit afraid of double dealing when she was present, and being proud of Mistress Penwick and not wishing it to appear that she was a prisoner, she opened the door and in came Lady Constance smiling and shy, a hollow-hearted creature of the world. Now it so happened that Lady Constance had kept herself from Katherine for some little time, wishing not to be disturbed by the maid's beauty; as it usually stirred her to frenzy and she wanted perfect quiet for calm reasoning. It took some time ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... descended upon him, and he was awkwardly stammering for words, with her cool hand in his grasp. As long as his enthusiasm had lasted he had talked fluently and naturally, swept away from his self-consciousness; but with the return of the formal amenities he became as ill at ease and shy as a boy. "There ain't anything more except that we're building a railroad out there, and I'm going back to finish it ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the belled horse, stuffed its bell with grass and moss, and got on its back. My beast was shy, and I had a deal of trouble to get hold ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... once picked up the governing cord of the mine which he was about to fire in the first instance. He felt that the Alaculof flotilla would act in future on the "once bitten twice shy" principle where those innocent-looking little poles showed above sea level, and he must strike fierce blows while the opportunity served. The nine canoes on the south were not clustered around the bomb in the same manner as the others, but they were near enough to sustain heavy loss, and ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... see. [Taking up a little red pair] But these,—these are for Jan. [JAN is perched on the tree-stump, shy ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... had outward, cooped up with these two and a shy and profoundly depressed mate who read the Bible on Sundays and spent the rest of his leisure in lethargy, three and fifty days of life cooped up in a perpetual smell, in a persistent sick hunger that turned from the sight of food, in darkness, cold and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... ground, And round his waist the vesture bound. Then quick the hero Lakshman too His garment from his shoulders threw, And, in the presence of his sire, Indued the ascetic's rough attire. But Sita, in her silks arrayed, Threw glances, trembling and afraid, On the bark coat she had to wear, Like a shy doe that eyes the snare. Ashamed and weeping for distress From the queen's hand she took the dress. The fair one, by her husband's side Who matched heaven's minstrel monarch,(312) cried: "How bind they on their woodland dress, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... rescued the long-lost historian of Rawleigh from the confinement of the Fleet, where he had existed, probably forgotten by the world, for six years. It was by an act of grace that the duke safely placed Oldys in the Heralds' College as Norroy King of Arms.[341] But Oldys, like all shy and retired men, had contracted peculiar habits and close attachments for a few; both these he could indulge at no distance. He liked his old associates in the purlieus of the Fleet, whom he facetiously dignified as "his Rulers," and there, as ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... his grandson, Louis XVI (1774-1792), a weak-kneed prince of twenty years, very virtuous and well-meaning, but lacking in intelligence and will-power. He was too awkward and shy to preside with dignity over the ceremonious court; he was too stupid and lazy to dominate the ministry. He liked to shoot deer from out the palace window, or to play at lock-making in his royal carpentry shop. Government he left to ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... would father them, he allowed his life to slip by until his seventieth year was reached, before he would print them, and when they appeared, he could not find the courage to put his name on the title-page. Not one of his own titlarks or sedge-warblers could be more shy of public observation. Even the fact that his own brother was a publisher gave him no ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... what a picture it made! It was the realisation of a poetic death—the victim smothered by roses beside the singing waters of a brook. It was a long time before any one came, and the two visitors sat in the verandah feeling rather shy and uncomfortable, for this was the neighbour's first visit, and the native, who had ushered them in, vanished, sending weird cries around the tangled garden paths as though ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... she might be the more anxious to see him, he talked again of abandoning literature, and sailing for America. This time the West Indies were his El Dorado. He did not say how the shy millions were to be coaxed into his purse there, unless he wished her to understand he intended to export spices, since he added: "If I had been a grocer for the last ten years, I should have become a millionaire." Forsooth, these details ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... and includes the words for food in every dialect between Ostend and the Golden Horn) had just brought soup and a bottle of thin Hungarian claret, when the other three chairs at my table were taken by a Rumanian family returning from a holiday in Budapest—an urbane gentleman of middle age, a shy little daughter, and a dark-eyed wife, glittering with diamonds, who looked a ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... old Whigs here have joined the Know-nothings, and keep very shy of me, as I have spoken not softly of the miserable wretches who expect to govern a great country like this with imbecility, if they can only cover it with secrecy. I have been greatly beset not to go to Europe this summer, as the political campaign is ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... laughing white villas westward, the pale-green vineyards, the yellow cornfields; she looked at the rushing river, with the diamonds sparkling on its surface, at the far-away gleaming snows of Monte Sfiorito, at the scintillant blue shy overhead. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her school years. There had been summer sessions twice and once ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... this debtor, a shy, retiring man, with a mild voice and irresolute hands, were perplexed by a partnership, of which he knew no more than that he had invested ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... first visits to the more distant tribes I found them shy, alarmed, and suspicious, but soon learning that I had no wish to injure them, they met me with readiness and confidence. My wishes became their law; they conceded points to me that they would not have done to their own people, and on many occasions cheerfully ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... her part, to bow and to inquire after her health. Then she asked Chou Jui's wife to bring a chair over for her to take a seat. But Pan Erh was still so very shy that he did not know how ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... men. His easy nonchalance, sunny temper, and perfect familiarity with the ways of the world and the weaknesses of average humanity, gave him an advantage which Lord John, with his nervous temperament, indifferent health, fastidious tastes, shy and rather distant bearing, and uncompromising convictions, never possessed. Russell's ethical fervour and practical energetic bent of mind divided him sharply from politicians who lived from hand to mouth, and were never ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos. These species of animal, allied to the camel, still render great services to the Indians. The llama is distributed over the greater part of the Andes, and the male only is used as a transport animal. The llama is shy, stupid, and quiet, and his head is somewhat like a sheep's. The alpaca does not carry loads, but is kept as a domestic animal for the sake of its meat and wool. The vicuna and guanaco also do not work in the service ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... I practised, and planted some flowers, and made some things for Miranda's baby, and then"—she hesitated, with an adorably shy look full of that pathos, which made so many of her simplest statements seem claims for protection, "and then I went over into ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... tree; but no sooner do you get near enough to take a pot shot at him than he pipes his note, and is off. The only way of getting at him is to proceed cautiously from bush to bush; but even then, so shy a bird is he, that it is ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... I would see if I could think up something to write and of course I was just stalling him because a soldier has got something better to do than write songs and I will leave that to the birds that was gun shy and stayed home. But if you see in the Chi papers where one of the reporters was talking to a soldier that use to be a star pitcher in the American League or something you will know who they mean. He said ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... bushrover, gathered round him a band of three or four hundred lawless, dare-devil French hunters, and now roamed the woods from Detroit halfway to Hudson Bay, swaying the Indians in favor of France and ruling the wilds, sole lord of the wilderness. There were Groseillers and Radisson and a shy young man of twenty-five who had obtained a seigniory from the Sulpicians at Lachine—Robert Cavelier de La Salle. Sometimes, too, Father Marquette came down with his Indians from the missions on Lake Superior. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... every day. And it was never Sami's way to insist upon his presence as ordinary children do. Li Ho departed to tinker with the "Tillicum" and afterwards returned to give us a late supper. Desire kept out of my way. One might almost have thought that she was shy—if so, a most perplexing development. For why should she feel shy? It wasn't as if we had not put the whole affair on a perfectly business basis. Perhaps there is some elemental magic in names, so that, to a woman, the very word "marriage" has ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... one. They're queer animals; they don't run like the other deer, but they trot as fast as the others run, so it comes to the same thing. They are very shy, and difficult to get near, except in the heavy snow, and then their weight will not allow them to get over it, as the lighter deer can; they sink up to their shoulders, and flounder about till they are overtaken. You see, Master Percival, the moose can't put on snow-shoes like we can, and that gives ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... slowly, his eyes fixed now on the reel, the whirring click of which drew his attention, so that he seemed to address his speech to it. "It is very kind, and I thank you. But I hope the Master will not refuse: though, to tell you the truth, there is another small difficulty which makes me shy of asking him ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... understood would be the most acceptable present he could make him, and received in return some fine fowls of the grouse kind, and twenty trouts. Our sportsmen met with but bad success; for though the bay swarmed with flocks of ducks of various kinds, and Greenland pigeons, yet they were so shy that they could not come within shot ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... came wandering from the sky, Light as the whispers of a dream; He put the o'erhanging grasses by, And gayly stooped to kiss the stream,— The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... left upon him the stamp of good taste and good breeding. In school he was always the model boy; in Oxford he wrote Latin verses on safe subjects, in the approved fashion; in politics he was content to "oil the machine" as he found it; in society he was shy and silent (though naturally a brilliant talker) because he feared to make some slip which might mar his prospects or the dignity ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... matter?" Mr. Rose ejaculated, staring after his son. "Shy; and I've been trying ever since he was born—without succeeding—to teach him that there were one or two people on earth bigger ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... flaring reds and yellows of the gorgeous flowers that the world admires. These are often like a great sunflower, with a disc as big as a cheese. But the Christian beauty will be modest and unobtrusive and shy, like the violet half buried in the hedge-bank, and unnoticed by careless eyes, accustomed to see beauty only in gaudy, flaring blooms. But unless you, as a Christian, are in your character arrayed in the "beauty of holiness," ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Lecorbeau's cottage. The joy of Pierre's father and mother on seeing the lad so soon returned was mingled with astonishment at seeing him arrive by water, and with a little English child in his care. The little one, with her exciting experiences behind her, did not dream of being shy, but was made happy at once with a kind welcome; while Pierre, the center of a wondering and exclaiming circle, narrated the wild adventures of the past few days, which had, indeed developed him all at once from boyhood to manhood. As he described the massacre, and the ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... with some facility in speaking Portuguese, acquired during the delay in the Brazils. He had absolutely no friends in India, and made no friends for many months after his arrival. It would be hard to think of a more desolate position for a proud, shy, high-spirited lad with a strong strain of melancholy in his composition. We find him sighing for Manchester with all the profound and pathetic longing which inspires the noble old English ballad ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... a little sigh, and opened the napkin on the ground before him. Miss Newell stood leaning against a rock on the opposite side of the brook, regarding the young man with a shy and smiling curiosity. "Meals," he continued, "are a reckless tribute to the weakness of the flesh we all engage in three times a day at the boarding-house; a man must eat, you know, if he expects to live. Have you ever tried any of Mrs. Bondy's ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... were two horses—a roan and a grey. Taffy had never before looked down on the back of a horse, and Joby's horses astonished him; they were so broad behind, and so narrow at the shoulders. He wanted to ask if the shape were at all common, but felt shy. He stole a glance at the silver ring in Joby's left ear, and blushed when Joby turned and ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... W—-'s. When she appeared in the schoolroom, her dress was changed, but just as old. She looked a little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her head from side to side to catch a sight of it. She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent. When a book was given her, she dropped her head over it till her nose nearly touched it, and when she was told to hold her head up, up went the book after it, still close to her nose, so that it was ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he had no brothers or sisters, and his mother had died many years before. He was a shy, wild boy—more at home with the sea birds that flew about the lonely shore, than with the children he met sometimes as he wandered about the country; but in spite of his shyness he had friends who loved ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... in so often now he's come home, and he fights shy o' the place, thinkin' mebbe she's around, and they both wants to buy. He's offered me thirty-five hundred cash, and she's offered me thirty hundred cash, which is all the place's worth, for it'll take another ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... he was a boy at twenty-one, he was a man at twenty-two. But now, at twenty-three, he appeared to be almost a man of the world. His manners were easy, his voice under his control, and words were at his command: he was no longer either shy or noisy; but, perhaps, was open to the charge of seeming, at least, to be too conscious of his own merits. He was, indeed, very handsome; tall, manly, and powerfully built, his form was such as women's eyes have ever loved to look upon. "Ah, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... confusion of the young lady herself, and the possible displeasure of her brother. Mr. Morton Berkeley's manners to me after that were again, as they always had been, respectful and rather reserved; the subject of our "fight" was never again alluded to, and he remained to me a gentle, shy, courteous ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... as a true Spaniard which he is, refuses to surrender life to ideas, and that is why he runs shy of abstractions, in which he sees but shrouds wherewith we cover dead thoughts. He is solely concerned with his own life, nothing but his life, and the whole of his life. An egotistical position? Perhaps. Unamuno, however, can and does ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... two left hands." He was so morbidly shy from living alone in his dreamland that he could not open a letter without trembling. He would often rally from his purposeless life, and resolve to redeem himself from the oblivion he saw staring him in the face; but, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... to stand wine when I met them, and was introduced as a friend of Miss Mavis who had gone abroad. I was I found well known by name and a character for kindness, and I expect also for being a fool. All the women were shy at first, Hannah's sister (the servant) I overheard telling Hannah that the ladies did not like my being in the parlour. Hannah at times would ask me to leave, as a lady wanted to come into the parlour and wait there, and so on. But gradually Hannah would say, "Who is it?—oh! she ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... sullen silence. "Don't tell that Dodd, whatever you do," said he. "They will come round now they have had their growl: they are too near home to shy ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... you're all right if you can get away with as much food as a well person, and it's time I did something toward laying in a stock of provisions. Will you stay here while I go after game? There are partridges enough, even though deer should be shy." ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... unknown country may be mapped out. The selection of these cardinal points depends in part on the mind of the observer, which has more or less insight into the various manifestations of possibility and quality which may occur. It is well to observe without seeming to do so, for as shy wild creatures fly off before a too observant eye, but may be studied by a naturalist who does not appear to look at them, so the real child takes to flight if it is too narrowly watched, and leaves a self conscious little person to take its place, making off with its true self into the backwoods ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... fond kiss, "God bless my little maids!" the father said, And cheerly went his way to win their bread. Then might be seen, the playmate parent gone, What looks demure the sister pair put on— Not of the mother as afraid, or shy, Or questioning the love that could deny; But simply, as their simple training taught, In quiet, plain straightforwardness of thought, (Submissively resign'd the hope of play,) Towards the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... ourselves with understanding or having any certain notions of immateriality, of beings so much more fugitive, so much more difficult to compass, even by thought, than the material elements; so much more shy of access than either the constituent principles of bodies, their primitive properties, their various modes of acting, or their different manner of existing? If we cannot recur to first causes, let its content ourselves with second causes, with those effects which we can submit to experience, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... I said, she was setting there and saying mostly: "Gawd bless me!" and "Gawd bless my soul!"—nobody paying much attention to her. But now Bonnie Bell she sidles over to her and sort of puts out her hand, shy. The old lady she puts a arm around her, and she begins to cry too. They was both right happy. Dogs has to fight and women has to cry; then they're happy. I reckon them two had some ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... your head if you don't shut up, Sankey," Mather said angrily; "there's no ink bottle for you to shy here." ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... knees, her palms lightly touching the ground, supporting her. At the edge of the streamlet she knelt, and she was looking with a species of startled shy astonishment at the reflexion of her face in the limpid brown water. And I, with sullen eye askance regarded her a ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... servants, workmen from the factory, old women and young girls and peasants; the latter, in memory of the days of serfdom, hung around the tables in front of the house, spread out with pies and small bottles of vodka. The happy boy was shy and pleased and proud, all at the same time; he caressed his parents and ran out of the room. At dinner Sipiagin ordered champagne, and before drinking his son's health made a speech. He spoke of the significance of "serving the ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... silence, till we reached our journey's end,—I too tired, he too reserved, too preoccupied, or too shy, to speak again; but when, at last, we were seated with our cigars on the Deacon's door-step, he turned suddenly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Toni was pleasant to look upon. She had taken off her hat and coat in the little ante-room, and as she stood there in her black frock, with its demure little white turn-down collar, she looked very young, very shy, and if the truth must be told, very pretty. Whereupon Barry, who loved all pretty girls in a harmless, kindly fashion, rejoiced exceedingly; while even Owen, to whom things feminine were at present anathema, owned to himself ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the horses with her, it was her way to get it all to herself. Grettir got on her back, and had a sharp knife in his hand, and drew it right across Keingala's shoulder, and then all along both sides of the back. Thereat the mare, being both fat and shy, gave a mad bound, and kicked so fiercely, that her hooves clattered against the wall. Grettir fell off; but, getting on his legs, strove to mount her again. Now their struggle is of the sharpest, but the end of it is, that he flays off the whole of the strip along the back to the loins. ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... the influences of nature's beauty and grandeur. Nor had her woman's consciousness to play the chrysalis in any shy recesses of her heart; she was nowhere veiled or torpid; she was illumined, like the Salvatore she saw in the evening beams and mounted in the morning's; and she had not a spot of seeresy; all her nature flew and bloomed; she was bird, flower, flowing river, a quivering ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Don't go shy yourself jest because I'm here," he protested, as Wallie attempted to cut one in two with the butcher-knife. "I ain't feelin' so ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... stockings had slipped down, and all his big-boned, only half-clothed robustness. She averted her glance—what a big fellow he was already!—but then she looked at him again almost immediately: why should a mother feel shy at looking at ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... mirror! Not to thee, O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale: Gloomy and dark art thou—the crowded firs Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well: 115 Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest On thy steep banks, no loves ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... peace. Peace he had in plenty. The spring of the heather, the tang of the sea brought peace. The bats of twilight, and the sallow branches, and the trout leaping in the river at the close of day. And the twilight itself, like some shy girl.... Out of all these came an emanation, a cradle-song, that lulled like the song of little waves.... And as for pleasure, there was pleasure in listening to the birds among the trees, to seeing the ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... off me yesterday— a quarter of a pound of bacon. Day before that he won Henry's last can of beans. He's got his share under his blanket over there, and swears he'll shoot any one who goes to monkeyin' with his bed— so you'd better fight shy of it. Thompson— he isn't up yet— chose the whisky for his share, so you'd better fight shy of him, too. Henry and I'll ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... the midst of them. They were somewhat startled at first; but on her explaining why she was there, they received her very kindly; and she then called out to me to approach, for I had waited in a bush out of sight, feeling a little shy and nervous. They were greatly delighted with my appearance, and I fear they quite turned my head by their praises. I know I gave myself airs, and strutted about in a manner that would have vexed my poor mother, could she but have seen me. My companion over ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... legally indicted some party or parties, active in the promotion of the nuisance, but they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors seldom take their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving, than for its ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of smiles, One sweetly shy, one proud, elate, Two loves passed down the long, wide aisles, Will they ever forget the ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... slope were but a few houses. The people were primitive in appearance, dress and language. They could not understand all we said, but were anxious to please the "padrecito," whose hand they kissed. Having no clothing to sell us, they tried to help us procure some. Orders were given to a shy and wild girl, with deep-set, shining jet-black eyes, raven hair and dark brown skin, dressed in rags. Stepping to a little out-jutting mass of rock, she gave a wild cry, looking across the valley to the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... He had the shy decisiveness of a man who seldom spoke his mind. If necessary I would have wrested his name from him and pretended a relationship with his wife. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... woman was not then sure, but she took full advantage of the position, and the ponies walked undirected, while Geoffrey essayed to chase away her fears. He bent his head lower towards her, and Millicent smiled at him with apparently shy gratitude. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... ability than his friend, Ardworth had more force and steadiness in his nature, and was wholly free from that morbid delicacy of temperament to which susceptible and shy persons owe much of their errors and misfortunes. He said, therefore, after a long pause: "My good fellow, to be plain with you, I cannot say that your confession has improved you in my estimation; but that ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spring, I had been walking through a copse of young white birches,—their leaves scarce yet apparent,—over a ground delicate with wood-anemones, moist and mottled with dog's-tooth-violet leaves, and spangled with the delicate clusters of that shy creature, the Claytonia or Spring Beauty. All this was floored with last year's faded foliage, giving a singular bareness and whiteness to the foreground. Suddenly, as if entering a cavern, I stepped through the edge of all this, into a dark little amphitheatre beneath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... fence in the shadder." As Mr. Bowers obeyed, Bob approached the wheels of the buggy in a manner half shy, half mysterious. "You wanter buy ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... of Cockington, had been asked, and had consented, to stand as Conservative candidate for the Torquay division of Devonshire. His local popularity, which was great, depended mainly on the engaging and somewhat shy simplicity of his manner, on his honesty, which was recognized by all, and on his generosity and sound sense as a landlord. These latter qualities had lately been made conspicuous by his administration of those parts of his property ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... gray suede boots laced high to meet her brief gray skirts, silver hat with a single velvet rose on the brim to match the soft rose-bloom on her cheeks. Gila with eyes as wide and innocent as a baby's, cupid mouth curved sweetly in a gracious, shy smile, and dainty little prayer-book done in gray suede held devoutly in her ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... across the ocean! I do not pretend to understand Wheaton and Phillimore, or even to have read a single word of any international law. I have refused to read any such, knowing that it would only confuse and mislead me. But I have my common sense to guide me. Two men living in one street, quarrel and shy brickbats at each other, and make the whole street very uncomfortable. Not only is no one to interfere with them, but they are to have the privilege of deciding that their brickbats have the right of way, rather than the ordinary intercourse of the neighborhood! If ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... A shy and unobtrusive member of the society in which he moved, and which delighted in the enjoyment of his friendship, John Leech was the keenest of observers, noting and satirizing as no one before his time had attempted, or indeed had been able to do, the cant and hypocrisy, the pride and selfishness, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... river, under the shadow of some high hills. Then, during the night, a light southerly air sprang up, freshening towards morning into a spanking breeze that soon became half a gale of wind, and under its welcome impulse—although we found it rather shy with us in some of the narrowest and most intricate parts of the navigation—we contrived to complete the descent of the remaining portion of the river on our second day out from Matadi's town, arriving off the mouth of Banana ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... Goodwin. "He has been holding an inquisition among the natives for three days. I am next on his list of witnesses, but as he feels shy about dragging one of Uncle Sam's subjects before him, he consents to give it the outward appearance of a social function. He will apply the torture over my ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... thought very pretty by strangers; but that dainty little person, and sweet sunny eyes and merry smile, and shy, kind, gracious ways, were perfect in the eyes of her grandmamma and of Mrs. King and her children, if of nobody else. Alfred, in his present dismal state, only felt vexed at a fresh person coming up to worry him, and make a talking; especially one whose presence was ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Souci had a handsome face, and at the bottom a good deal of common sense; but he had never been taught good manners, and was shy and awkward; and had, besides, never learned how to use ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... liberal margin of profit on his winter's operations, Bill realized that he was still shy approximately half of the sum which Doctor Thomas had set as satisfactory, and when the latter began planning to resume work on a larger scale in the fall Mr. Hyde was stricken with panic. Fearing lest his own lack of enthusiasm in ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the robust, fat Teutons of the Saxon capital. He was entering Dresden on a late afternoon brown with German sunshine. The school year had begun, but a loitering summer-time brightened city and countryside. As he made his way slowly through the throng at the station, he gave evidence of a rather shy way of looking up and about, an apologetic readiness to step aside, to yield place, not characteristic of the speedy American in Europe. He had not, as we have said, come to Germany for adventure. He had not come merely ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... slander of the first lady's raising was spread industriously, and with the utmost malice and bitterness, and did him an inexpressible prejudice; every man he dealt with was shy of him; every man he owed any thing to came for it, and, as he said, he was sure he should see the last penny demanded; it was his happiness that he had wherewith to pay, for had his circumstances ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... maternal care, And promised never to go near. Yet still he burned to disobey, And hovered round it day by day; And communed thus: "I wonder why? Does mother think my soul is shy? Thinks me a coward? or does she Store grain in yonder well from me? I'll find that out, and so here goes." So said, he flaps his wings and crows, Mounted the margin, peered below, Where to repel him rose a foe. His choler rose, his plumes upreared— With ruffled plumes the foe appeared. ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... opinion that Dave's too shy to make up to women folks. I don't think he'll even get up the courage to ask Kate to ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... everyone's shy. The more experience I get the more convinced I am that we're all shy. Why, you were shy when you came to ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... standing in the doorway, and presently Mr. Bowles came out and shook hands with me and helped me down with my things. He was a kind, sensible-looking man, and he made the children come and speak to me and shake hands. They were shy then and hung back, and put their fingers in their mouths; I knew just how they felt. I wanted to hang back, too, when he took me into the house to see Mrs. Bowles. She was an invalid, he told me, and could not leave ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... been, after the trouble she had taken with the shawl. Nor do I pretend to say that she was disappointed, or anything of the sort, because Salina in her day possessed the very germ and root of a strong-minded woman of modern times, and persons of ordinary capacity are shy of running counter to ladies of that class—all that we venture to assert is that she made a dead halt on the porch, looked up and down the garden, observed in an under-tone "It was raining cats and dogs yet," devices ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Stockton boys on this occasion, pounding Baker all over the field and running up a score of 16 as against a single for their opponents. The showing made by the visitors on that occasion opened the eyes of the Californian ball-players and from that time on both the Pioneers and the Stocktons fought shy of both ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... I am sure that she can hide nothing from me. Her skin is so transparent that one can almost count her heart-beats by the flushes they send into her cheeks. She does not seem to be shy, either. I think she does not know enough of danger to be timid. She seems to me like one of those birds that travellers tell of, found in remote, uninhabited islands, who, having never received any wrong at the hand of man, show no alarm ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... had never turned the pages of a text-book, but knew where to scrape away the dead leaves above the first anemone, or had groped painfully among the lifeless branches in forgotten hollows for the shy dog-rose; unguided little feet that had instinctively made their way to remote southern slopes for the first mariposas, or had unerringly threaded the tule-hidden banks of the river for flower-de-luce. Convinced that he could ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... ought to do: to you most freely. You know me, both head and heart, and I will make what deductions your reasons may dictate to me. I can think of no other person (for your travelling companion)—what wonder? For the last years, I have been shy of all new acquaintance. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... shallow pie-dish, for the robins and little birds. These should be refilled twice a day, at least, in summer time. You can place the pans on the grass or path, where you can see them comfortably from the house, but not nearer than you can help, because the blackbirds are rather shy, and it would be a pity to make drinking too ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... once a garden-ground Dull red-bloomed sorrels now abound; And boldly whistles the shy quail ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... uncle and his aunt Lady Doughty, which cannot but be intelligible to any one who has the least knowledge of human failings. It is not in the nature of things that either Lady Doughty or her husband could have been greatly predisposed towards the youthful stranger, and Roger was shy and reserved and over-sensitive. He had the misfortune to stand in the place which they must once have ardently hoped that their dead child would have lived to inherit. Sir Edward was in failing health, and his brother James was an old man. The time could not therefore be far distant ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... "I see you are shy," returned he, with encreasing gentleness, "I see you cannot be easy with me; and when I consider how little you are accustomed to me, I do not wonder. But pray take courage; I think it necessary ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... came to me, my darling, whom I despaired of ever seeing again—she came shy and coy, I thought, but love was shining from her ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... One day when I was humming a favorite chant, I think it was "Babylon's a-Fallin'," a porpoise jumped higher than the bowsprit. Had the Spray been going a little faster she would have scooped him in. The sea-birds sailed around rather shy. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... I must be a tough looking customer," grinned the boy, again climbing the fence and starting along the track. He fought shy of villages during daylight, fearing that he might be arrested for vagrancy and locked up. That would ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... though; and a well-to-do look through it all. Miss Quackenboss Fleda recognised as an old friend, gilt beads and all. Catherine Douglass had grown up to a pretty girl during the five years since Fleda had left Queechy, and gave her a greeting, half-smiling, half-shy. There was a little more affluence about the flow of her drapery, and the pink ribbon round her neck was confined by a little dainty Jew's-harp of a brooch; she had her mother's pinch of the nose too. Then there ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... natural kindness, which I shall not easily forget, a bunch of sweet-smelling marjoram. The acknowledgement which the miserable creature attempted to make for the seasonable aid, convinced me that he was something better than he seemed. A shy and half-formed bow—the impulse of a heart and mind once cultivated, though covered now with weeds and noxious growths—redeemed him from the common herd of thieves. In the calendar his age was stated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... on the little finger of her left hand; it was much too large, and she removed it and balanced it for a moment doubtfully in the palm of her right hand. She was smiling, and her face was lit with shy and tender thoughts. She cast a quick glance to the left and right as though fearful that people passing in the street would observe her, and then slipped the ring over the fourth finger of her left ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... soil is warm with rain, And through the wood the shy wind steals, Rich with the pine and the poplar smell,— And the joyous soul like a dancer, reels Through ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... conscious that her name was being flung from lip to lip with a laugh and a jest, that, no matter how innocent her words or her actions might be, an evil meaning was twisted out of them and applauded. Even her uncle laughed and seemed to agree when Heriot declared that a woman who was shy in her love affairs was always the most dangerous, and suggested that Mrs. Dearmer must look to her laurels now that Mistress Lanison had taken the field against her. To deny the insinuations, or to resent them, ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... at Miss Meadows, and Miss Meadows tried to look at Jack Rabbit, but was quite shy and modest at being praised before everybody in that way. Then Mr. 'Coon brought her a nice little low chair, and she sat down, and they all asked her to tell about her great adventure, because they said they were tired of hearing their ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... slight cold. He half halted, intending to ask Phillida to sit down with him on a seat partly screened by a bush at each end; but there were many people passing, and the two went on and mounted the steps to the circular asphalted space at the top of the knoll. Phillida, shy of what she felt must come, began to ask about the great buildings in view, and he named for her the lofty Dakota Flats rising from a rather naked plain to the westward, the low southern facade of the Art Museum to the northward, to the east the somber front ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Sea-warrior, let not his heart be downcast. Who wotteth but that these two desires, the desire of his heart, and the desire of a heart for him, may not be one and the same desire, so that he shall be fully satisfied?" As she spoke she looked sidelong at Hallblithe, with shy and wheedling eyes; and he wondered at her word, and a new hope sprang up in his heart that he was presently to be brought face to face with the Hostage, and that this was that love, sweeter than their ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... German aeroplanes flew over us every morning at sunrise, but now we had a dozen aeroplanes to their one and theirs were rather shy. Our guns had ranged up and down the whole front and we had all begun to get confident and to think that it was only a matter of a few days until we would be on the high road ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... a sly Little twinkle in your eye; And your whisperingly shy Little laugh is simply an Internal shout of glee That betrays the fallacy You'd ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... that row whistling?" growled a voice from the far end of the room; "because I'd like to shy a boot ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... lady of Castlewood found the sad, lonely, little occupant of this gallery busy over his great book, which he laid down when he was aware that a stranger was at hand. And, knowing who that person must be, the lad stood up and bowed before her, performing a shy obeisance to the mistress of ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... wilt conquer all hearts with thy prevailing gentleness, and I will show the world what Shakespear's women were!—Some gallants set their hearts on princesses; others descend in imagination to women of quality; others are mad after opera-singers. For my part, I am shy even of actresses, and should not think of leaving my card with Madame Vestris. I am for none of these bonnes fortunes; but for a list of humble beauties, servant-maids and shepherd-girls, with their red elbows, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... when I discovered that she knew a little English I could have hugged her. We spread our cold supper on the top of my dress suit case, put our one candle in the center, and proceeded to feast. Little Miss Izy was not as shy as she looked, and what she lacked in vocabulary she made up in enthusiasm. We got into a gale of laughter over our efforts to understand each other, and she was as curious about my costume as I was about hers. She watched ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... charm that most distinguished Agnes—the artless expression of goodness and purity which instantly attracted everyone who approached her. She looked by many years younger than she really was. With her fair complexion and her shy manner, it seemed only natural to speak of her as 'a girl,' although she was now really advancing towards thirty years of age. She lived alone with an old nurse devoted to her, on a modest little income which was just enough ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... raising his eyes to his captor with a singularly new and shy admiration in them, "mebbee not so much of WOT you said, ez HOW you said it, and it's kinder bothered me, sittin' here, that I ain't bin actin' to you boys quite on the square. I've said to myself, 'Collinson, thar ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... Tricotrin. "He is as serious as an English adaptation of a French farce." He went on, under his breath, "You mustn't judge him by his manner, I can see that he has turned a little shy. Believe me, he is the King ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... belief that the king belongs to the people as well as the people to the king." Before leaving the exhibition he recurred to the subject, again expressing his deep regret. "I hope that none of you believe," said he, "that I am the sort of man who is shy of being seen among the people. I have no grounds whatever for such ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... students of sociology, Professor Letourneau has long stood in the first rank. He approaches the great study of man free from bias and shy of generalisations. To collect, scrutinise, and appraise facts is ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... admit. The high bank with green slopes is covered with churches, white buildings and gleaming gold crosses. Something tranquil about Tobolsk! Blue, red and green roofs look shy from their cozy nests of trees. It must be very exciting to live here when all is normal. Good God! I see from the deck the fine foggish veil of dust and gossips hanging over the town. They must still play "preference" here, or ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... again, with never a shy or a snort—the horse knowing the rider, and the man the noble beast; the lizards wheetling merrily, and the paroquets on the tree-tops waking up to chatter with satisfaction. Then into the beaten track along by the sea-shore, the horse increasing his stride at every minute, the spume ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Ironbark, with broad lanceolate, but not cordate, glaucous leaves, and very dark bark, formed the forest. An arborescent Acacia, in dense thickets, intercepted our course several times. Bronze-winged pigeons were very numerous, but exceedingly shy. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... others, but not much. They make the same signs of friendship, and their language seems to be one; but the others had proas, and these canoes. On the sides of some of these we saw the figures of several fish neatly cut, and these last were not so shy as the others. ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... smooth-faced and looked like a good-natured country bumpkin in his peasant garb, all decorated with dust. He was modest, half-shy, and the nuns who peered at him from behind the arras as he walked down the hallway of the Convent caused his countenance to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... scavenger by choice, preferring his own kill, but being on the whole a lazy dog, is apt to fall into carrion eating because it is easier. The red fox and bobcat, a little pressed by hunger, will eat of any other animal's kill, but will not ordinarily touch what dies of itself, and are exceedingly shy of food that has ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... him trace the wayward brook Amid the forest mysteries, Where at themselves shy aspens look, Or where, with many a gurgling crook, It croons ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... she divined from his half troubled look at her, and the shy modesty of his manner, that he was wondering whether he had actually babbled last night, or in a mild delirium dreamed the whole thing. Not from her might he find out. Her easy, matter-of-fact way made any such passage ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... could see that it was not a rowdy street either. He looked up at a lamp on the first corner he came to, and read Pleasant Avenue on it; then he said that the witch was in it. He dramatised a scene of meeting those girls, and was very glib in it, and they were rather shy, and Miss Dudley kept behind Amanda Grier, who nudged her with her elbow when Lemuel said he had come round to see if anybody had robbed them of their books on the way home after he ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... recorded in the last chapter, Mrs. Tibbs had been very shy of young-lady boarders. Her present inmates were all lords of the creation, and she availed herself of the opportunity of their assemblage at the dinner-table, to announce the expected arrival of Mrs. Bloss. The gentlemen received the communication with stoical indifference, and Mrs. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... before the advancing event. They could talk of it in private and express their dissatisfaction with it, and that was all they could do. It would not be a matter much further turned over between them at best. They would be shy of any affair of sentiment in terms of speech, and from one that affected a member of the family, self-respect would help to pull them the other way. Mrs Murchison might remember it in the list of things which roused her vain indignation; John Murchison would put it away ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the entire company standin' pat. Scraggsy, you're a hero, and what you propose proves that you're considerable of a singed cat—better'n you look. We'll go freebootin' down on the Gold Coast. There's war, red war, breakin' loose down there, and we'll shy in our horseshoe with the strongest side and pry loose a fortune somewhere. I'm for a life of wild adventure, and now that we've got the ship and the funds and the crew, let's go to it. There's a deal of fine liquor in the wardroom, and I suggest that ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... felt drawn in two different ways; for she had inherited something of her father's recklessness and love of pleasure, though her mother, who died when Clare was young, had been a shy Puritan. Clare was kept at school much longer than usual; and when she insisted on coming home she found herself puzzled by her father's way of living. Young men, and particularly army officers, frequented ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... with you, Imogene; but you'll find, as you live along, that your contemporaries are always young. Mr. Colville is very much improved. He used to be painfully shy, but he put on a bold front, and now the bold front seems to have become ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... several drawing-rooms,' she says. 'I saw ladies who were so shy that they couldn't utter a word before me, but who suddenly put a ribbon round my wrist to measure it'—you know, of course, by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... jaded. It filled him with a reverence that was not far short of worship. He felt it impossible to think of her as performing the ordinary acts of a mortal world. He had the feeling that she moved on higher levels—that she was a creature too shy and perfect to be made the instrument of passion. She should be guarded in her purity like a vestal virgin, so that her straight young body might be forever valiant and her eyes might never learn ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... call it; for we see that she is going to some slight merry-making, as she carries in her hands the shoes which are to cover those stockingless feet. She, too, is entirely at her ease and unconscious of her costume, except for a shy suspicion that it becomes her, and she, it. Her waist is of its natural size and in its proper place. Her shoulders are covered, and her arms have free play; and although her bodice is cut rather low, the rising chemise and the falling kerchief redeem ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... six months before, and Columbine was out of mourning now. She had come into the Spear Point community like a shy bird, a little slip of a thing, upright as a dart, with a fashion of holding her head that kept all familiarity at bay. But the shyness had all gone now. The girlish immaturity was fast vanishing in soft curves and tender lines. And the beauty ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... sons of the house appeared, and with them Tom Southam, Jack's roommate at college. Jack had the same merry blue eyes and sunny smile as his sister, and Judith forgot to be shy with him. Thomas was a cheery youth, whose chief interest at the dinner-table was the food, and Judith gave him scant attention. But Tim, the elder brother, who had been in the Flying Corps and had several enemy machines to his credit, ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... en some eggs, en some butter, ter town. Brer Fox year 'im comin', he did, en w'at do he do but go en lay down in de road front er de waggin. Mr. Man, he druv 'long, he did, cluckin' ter de hoss en hummin' ter hisse'f, en w'en dey git mos' up ter Brer Fox, de hoss, he shy, he did, en Mr. Man, he tuck'n holler Wo! en de hoss, he tuck'n wo'd. Den Mr. Man, he look down, en he see Brer Fox layin' out dar on de groun' des like he cole en stiff, en w'en Mr. Man see dis, ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... and to triumph shy, Fair Victory named him from the polar sky. Fanes to the gods, to men he manners gave; Rest to the sword, and respite to the brave; So high could ne'er Herculean power aspire: The god should bend his looks to the Tarpeian fire." [Footnote: ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... thought of that. Something to make her gun-shy and camera-shy. It's curious about her. In some ways she's a timid girl. She's afraid of ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "You're shy, rather than over, at that. And two hundred thousand would build a number of miles of ordinary railroad, wouldn't it? But that isn't all. The cliffs along that canyon are shale-topped and shale-undermined, the shale alternating with ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... the weather cleared and settled, cold and rasping. I took the rifle and looked about for game, but the snow was now so deep that walking far in it was out of the question. I did not see the track or sign of any living thing save a single whisky-jack, but even he was shy and kept well out ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... nearest corner as was possible. He said afterwards that he hadn't the courage to thank me. I brought him to bay at last, and came to know him very well; and then I discovered how the nervousness, the bashfulness, the mauvaise honte, which made him so shy and retiring in private, stood him in wonderful stead on the stage. The nervous man became the fretful and capricious tyrant of mock tragedy; the bashful man warmed at the foot-lights with passion and power. The manner which in society was a drawback and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... were brought by shy maidens to the youths of their choice, asking them to hull rice. There were daily entertainments which deserved some such name as "hulling bee"—at any rate, we all enjoyed them hugely. The girls brought with them plenty of good ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Tattiana was her name, Nor by her sister's brilliancy Nor by her beauty she became The cynosure of every eye. Shy, silent did the maid appear As in the timid forest deer, Even beneath her parents' roof Stood as estranged from all aloof, Nearest and dearest knew not how To fawn upon and love express; A child devoid of childishness To romp and play she ne'er would go: Oft staring ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... called Hagar and her child. Can we not see them in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the child,—the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the vigour of manhood—the boy shy, yet half-defying—the mother! In such an hour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all the feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well forget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... liable to attack than an inland place, formed the depot for the tin trade, and the ingots were no doubt shipped near the site of Richborough. We may regard it, in fact, as a sort of prehistoric Hong-Kong or Zanzibar, a trading island, where merchants might traffic at ease with the shy ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... he knows his end is at hand as well as you or I; but, so far from thinking it a loss, he believes it to be a great gain. He is old and stiff, and you have made the game so scarce and shy, that better shots than him find it hard to get a livelihood. Now he thinks he shall travel where it will always be good hunting ; Where no wicked or unjust Indians can go; and where he shall meet all his tribe together agin. Theres not much loss in ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, 50 Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, And hints at her foregone gentilities With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves; The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, Glares red ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a great contrast between the two children. Rachel Herrick is a shy child, with a delicate, refined face, lighted by wonderful gray eyes like Bronson's. I do not understand her. She seems afraid of me, and I confess I am equally afraid of her. Even Rachel Percival does not get on with her very well, although she has bravely tried. The child spends ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... long time he was inclined to be shy of her, often baring his teeth at her approach, and it was a much longer time before the female made friends with us. But by careful kindness, by never eating without sharing our meat with them, and by feeding them from our hands, we finally won the confidence ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a dearth of booty. The Spaniards were getting shy of keeping too many valuables where they could be taken. So negotiations, emphasized by piecemeal destruction, went on till sickness and the lateness of the season put the English in a sorry fix. The sack of the city had yielded much less than that of San Domingo; and the men, who were ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... summer day and my greenery yon; and, maybe, too, of the first time they ever ate 'finnan haddie' and 'John's Delight.' More than that, it will give us the freedom of speech with son, as it wouldn't were they sitting by. He's aye shy, ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... smiles, One sweetly shy, one proud, elate, Two loves passed down the long, wide aisles, Will they ever forget the ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... these two tenses, which is denied likewise, they [the foregoing examples] are all one [; i.e., exactly equivalent]"—Id. "Both these tenses may represent a futurity, implied by the dependence of the clause."—Id. "Cry, cries, crying, cried, crier, decrial; Shy, shier, shiest, shily, shiness; Fly, flies, flying, flier, high-flier; Sly, slier, sliest, slily, sliness; Spy, spies, spying, spied, espial; Dry, drier, driest, drily, driness."—Cobb, Webster, and Chalmers ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... empty out her whole budget of warnings. "Even professional people like father, all our friends and acquaintances, our relations on both sides of the house would begin to drop us, and fight shy of us. What people that had any pretensions to being gentle-folks would care to be mixed up with our brother-in-law the linen-draper? And it is not as if the temptation were great; I cannot see wherein the attraction lies; but instead of letting it beset you, please ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... crime. Some time after nightfall a carter was driving home by Factory Road, when just as he was nearing Long Bridge one of his horses shied so violently that he barely escaped being thrown from his seat. As he had never known the animal to shy like this before, he was curious enough to get down and look about him for the cause. Dark Hollow is never light, but it is impenetrable after dark, and not being able to see anything, he knelt down in the road and began to feel about with his hand. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... into the lab. Karen was there alone, setting up an apparatus for the next attempt at heat treatment. A smock covered her into shapelessness, and her spectacular hair was bound up in a kerchief, but she still looked good. Lancaster, a shy man, was more susceptible to her than he wanted ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... her head a little on one side, as though she were trying to read his character. "You seemed shy, different from most men. Are ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... the Paramo, on the summit of the Cordilleras, thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. We caught sight of numbers of wild asses, which inhabit this mountainous region. The hoof of the animal is divided like that of a pig. They are very shy, so that even the Indians are seldom able to approach near enough to kill them; and they are also very ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... soon as I gets him on shore, I means to try what I can do. I don't fear him, nor his master, nor anything else, 'cause I'm a Christian, and was baptised Peter; and I tells you all, that be he a dog, or be he a devil, I'll have a shy at him as soon as I can, and if I don't, I hope I may ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... kiss a new love put forth its strength, not the pale beatitude of his dream, with its sweet wistfulness, its shy desires. That was large and vague and insubstantial, permeating like an odor the humdrum purlieus of the day. This was savage, triumphant, that leaped like flame from his heart to his mouth, that burned blood-red on the black night. It swept away hesitation, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... noted for their preaching, and would often go up into the pulpits of the churches, where large crowds gathered to hear them, the Bishop even inviting St. Francis to preach in the cathedral. Now, among the brethren there was one called Ruffino, who was very shy and nervous and felt he simply couldn't preach and face a great crowd of people, all staring at him and waiting for his words. Now, St. Francis hated that any of his Friars should give in to themselves about anything. ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... but he never made his successors' mistake of despising her. He cultivated good relations, but he rejected the idea of an alliance, because, as he said, "the English constitution is not compatible with treaties of assured continuity." In other words, he fought shy of British democracy, which he felt to be an incalculable factor. This threw ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... flashed a shy look into the beaming, inquisitive face. "I don't know," she confessed, soberly. "I have not even seen him for such a long time; but—but, I guess, he is more to me ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... mild and gentle, soft-spoken and shy. They had all adopted Brazilian clothes. The hut of the chief was extremely clean and neat inside, the few utensils that were visible being ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... that had always shone there. He turned and led his flock to the fold, and when he had done so he sat down on the hillside and played upon his harp; and the music was as beautiful as silence, so that shy creatures did not fear, but crept around to listen. The pale moon rose up, and the stars shone down ...
— Child Stories from the Masters - Being a Few Modest Interpretations of Some Phases of the - Master Works Done in a Child Way • Maud Menefee
... startle, stagger; shake one's faith, shake one's belief, stagger one's faith, stagger one's belief. Adj. unbelieving; skeptical, sceptical. [transitive] incredulous as to, skeptical as to; distrustful as to, shy as to, suspicious of; doubting &c. v. doubtful &c. (uncertain) 475; disputable; unworthy of, undeserving of belief &c. 484; questionable; suspect, suspicious; open to suspicion, open to doubt; staggering, hard to believe, incredible, unbelievable, not to be ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... acknowledged the smartest girl in Westfield, but perhaps for that very reason she had held aloof from manhood until now. At least no youth in her neighborhood had ever impressed her as her equal. Neither did Babcock so impress her; but he was different from the rest. He was not shy and unexpressive; he was buoyant and self-reliant, and yet he seemed to appreciate her quality ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... said Dr. Duchesne, "that this activity still exists, and the proof of it, as I said before, is that he is trying now to forget it, and avoid thinking of it. You will find that he will fight shy of any allusion to it, and will be cunning enough to dodge it ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... herself from the bare narration presented to her, that she read it not at all in the words, but in the voice, the face, the manner of the raconteur. She was amused, she was touched, she was impressed by his studiously matter-of-fact version of his enterprise. He put forward with the shy, prudish shamefacedness of the New Englander the sound financial basis of his undertaking, as its main claim on his interest, as its main value. "I heard so much about forestry being nothing but a rich man's plaything," he said. "I just got my back up, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Miss Clara—not that I was afraid of her, but that I did not exactly know what was expected of me, and Mrs Wilson gave us no further introduction to each other. I was not so shy, however, as not to wish Mrs Wilson would leave us together, for then, I thought, we should get on well enough; but such was not her intent. Desirous of being agreeable, however—as far as I knew how, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... gentry assumed the character of a poor cripple, and stationed himself as a beggar, sweeping the crossing near the habitation of his shy cock, who, conceiving himself safe after three days voluntary imprisonment, was seized by the supposed Beggar, who threw away his broom to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Frances Burney was born. Nothing in her childhood indicated that she would, while still a young woman, have secured for herself an honorable and permanent place among English writers. She was shy and silent. Her brothers and sisters called her a dunce, and not without some show of reason; for at eight years old she did not know ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... forms in the order Campanulaceae are many flowers of great value in the garden, including Single, Double, and Cup and Saucer strains of the popular Canterbury Bell (C. medium). The impression that some Campanulas are shy growers and require exceptionally careful treatment may arise from the frail habit of certain varieties, or from the fact that some of them occasionally fail to bloom within twelve months from date of sowing. The idea ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... different," the girl said. "Why, the first time I saw him he was as shy as shy could be. It was quite hard work getting on with him. Now he seems ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... about California lions, California tigers, California leopards, California hyenas, California camels, and California hippopotami. He furthermore declared he had, on one occasion, seen a California elephant, "at a great distance," but it was "very shy," and he would not permit himself to doubt that California giraffes existed somewhere in the neighborhood of ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... smart young creature with a nice blue coat, fond of town, I should say, but quite at home in the country. She also is inspecting two bloaters. But these two are very shy. In fact they are not really bloaters at all; they are rather a pair of nice-mannered fresh herrings, not long mated. The male had something to do with that war, I should think; the coupe would help him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... round, red Mr. Sun had crept out of bed, and he had fully made up his mind that he would be back in the Green Forest before Mr. Sun had climbed very far up in the blue, blue sky. You see, big as he is and strong as he is, Buster Bear is very shy and bashful, and he has no desire to meet Farmer Brown, or Farmer Brown's boy, or any other of those two-legged creatures called men. It seems funny but he actually is afraid of them. And he had a feeling that he was a great deal more likely to meet ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... a very shy man," said the shameless T. X., "difficult to a fault, and rather apt to underrate my social attractions. I have come to you now because you know everybody—by the way, how long have you had ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... the house and go out the other way," Mr. Chamberlain remarked coolly, "it will oblige me. My horse is loose in the yard, and I'm afraid you'll scare him off. He's shy with strangers." ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... bashfulness where Ludovic was concerned. She was not at all shy of referring to him and his dilatory courtship. Indeed, it seemed ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... blizzard Buried every green blade and bent to earth Great trees and slender saplings Under a thick weight of snow. To our door came the thrushes That we thought were gone,— Shy thrushes, that had turned their backs Upon us in summer and slipped Into the depth of the woods,— And whitethroats and tree sparrows, Unafraid, waiting for food. Even now the stillness is alive With the ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... majority and minority. The world has an instinct for recognizing its own, and recoils from certain qualities when exemplified in books, with the same disgust or defective sympathy as would have governed it in real life. From qualities for instance of childlike simplicity, of shy profundity, or of inspired self-communion, the world does and must turn away its face towards grosser, bolder, more determined, or more intelligible expressions of character and intellect; and not otherwise in literature, nor at all less in literature, than it does, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... time the two vessels fought shy of each other, manoeuvring for a windward position. Towards three o'clock in the afternoon, the Americans gained this advantage, and at once shortened sail, and edged down toward the enemy. As the ships drew near, a sailor was seen to climb into the rigging of the Englishman, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... it," replied Bob gleefully. "I'd always rather fight than run away, Harry, lad—at least, when it's anything like a fair match; so let's rouse up the pop-gun and have a shy at 'em." ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... that's all, till I get the steam up right, and make the paddles work? Won't I have a lark of the rael Kentuck breed? Won't I trip up a policeman's heels, thunder the knockers of the street doors, and ring the bells and leave no card? Won't I have a shy at a lamp, and then off hot foot to the hotel? Won't I say, 'Waiter, how ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the Minister and the gentlemen at the English hotel used to be rather shy of us two Irish noblemen, and questioned our pretensions to rank. The Minister was a lord's son, it is true, but he was likewise a grocer's grandson; and so I told him at Count Lobkowitz's masquerade. My uncle, like a noble gentleman as he was, knew the pedigree of ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Nathaniel's my enthusiasm for Sebastian had been cooling continuously. Admiring his greatness still, I had doubts as to his goodness. That day I felt I positively mistrusted him. I wondered what his passage of arms with Hilda might mean. Yet, somehow, I was shy of alluding to ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... I saw him stagger an' fall. He'd fainted from overheat. I come as quick as I could. I got water in his hat and dashed it on him—look how wet it made him, but it revived him. He wanted to work on, but I made him stop and set down. He's timid and shy before you, but me 'n him are great friends, ain't we, Joe? He helped me hunt eggs the other day"—she was running on now in a tender, caressing tone—"and I gave him some of my pie. He could crawl to places I never got at before, and we raked in a peck that would have ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... many of my friends, people on whose side I, too, am to be found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow up and develop wholesomely. But, as a matter of fact, that is precisely what we can not and will not ever allow them to do. There are very few middle-aged men and women who can clearly recall ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and now we are in Tyris rivulet! Part of a meadow is flooded; a herd of horses become shy from the snorting of the steamer's engine; they dash through the water in the meadow, and it spurts up all over them. It glitters there between the trees on the declivity: the Upsala students lie encamped there, and exercise themselves in the use ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... very hot from midday to sunset, but the nights are comparatively cool. One afternoon we saw a great number of serpent-birds perched high up on a bulbous tree, and, as they are good to eat, stopped to shoot some. They were not at all shy and did not depart after several shots had been fired, but wheeled round and round as if to discover what was the cause of the strange noise. Ball, 3 and 5' shot were equally efficacious and more than a dozen fell ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... of difficulties before my admittance to the Borda. And later I lived through many troublous years; years replete with struggles and mistakes,—I had many a Calvary to climb; I had to pay cruelly and in full for having been reared a sensitive, shy little creature, by force of will I had to recast and harden my physical as well as my moral being. One day, when I was about twenty-seven years of age, a circus director, after having seen my muscles that then had the elasticity and strength of steel, gave utterance, ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... on the fact of the girl's prominence as a feature of the season's end, to keep Densher in relation, for the rest of them, both to present and to past. "It's everything that has happened since that makes you naturally a little shy about her. You don't know what has happened since, but we do; we've seen it and followed it; we've a little been of it." The great thing for him, at this, as Kate gave it, was in fact quite irresistibly ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... pretty full of what is known among the civilised as "cheek," was almost overwhelmed by this public recognition of his prowess, and was about to retire with a half-shy expression, when the audience received the proposal with a burst ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... won't present us with a racing stud," lisps the gunner, "but, by G——, they'll shy chaff enough at us to keep all the bloomin' horses between 'ere and 'ell, and the girls will send us a kid's feedin' bottle, as a mark of feelin' and esteem, every Valentine's Day for ten years to come, because of the glorious name we made for Australia on the ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... those of fashion, if the body has been starved of oxygen and deprived of sunlight, if the whole system has been kept on the rack, whether in the sweatshop, or in the furnace of affliction, what is the effect on the nervous system? Just what might have been expected. The sense-organs shy, like a frightened horse, at every shadow or fluttering leaf. The conducting wires break, and cross, and tangle in every imaginable fashion. The central exchange, half wild with hunger, or crazed with fatigue-toxins, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... although it does not possess the exquisite plumage of that bird. The long drooping feathers of the emu are brownish-black in color, and covered with hairy fibres. A full-grown bird is five or six feet in height. It never flies, but, like the ostrich, is a very swift runner, and as it is very shy, is difficult to capture. Its nest is a hole scraped in the ground, where it lays six or seven dark green eggs. Emus are much hunted by the Bushmen, as a fine clear oil is prepared from the skin, which is highly prized for its ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... expediency of making it clearer came soon after with a visit from Mr. Evans, who brought his half-year's accounts of sales, and some small disappointment for him in those of Copperfield. "The accounts are rather shy, after Dombey, and what you said comes true after all. I am not sorry I cannot bring myself to care much for what opinions people may form; and I have a strong belief, that, if any of my books are read years hence, Dombey ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... was the first child and was, naturally, somewhat spoiled—a process which tended to increase my natural tendency to sentimentality. On the other hand, I was shy and undemonstrative with all except my nearest relatives, and with them as well after my seventh or eighth year. And here it may be well to describe my "mental type," as this is probably the most important factor in determining the direction of one's mental development. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... use explaining my motives—you wouldn't understand them. Still, in future, don't set down every man commonly honest as an uncommon fool. If I ever had much money, which is hardly likely, I should fight extremely shy of any investments recommended ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... kept is this beautiful Cantal cow, a small, red, glossy-coated breed, very gentle, and very shy. The enormous quantities of milk afforded by these dairy farms are sold in part at Aurillac for home consumption. By far the larger proportion is used in the cheese- makers' huts, or 'burons,' on the surrounding ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... have been broken up by hammocks than by all the Sunday schools in the world, and no girl who is bow-legged, or has an ankle like a rutabaga, should ever trust herself in a hammock, even though it is held by half a dozen friends, as the hammock will shy at a piece of paper as quick as a skittish horse, and in such a moment as ye think not you are on all fours, your head dizzy, and if there is a hole in your stocking as small as a Democrat's hope of election, it will look to outsiders as big as the gate to ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... it would be but an imperfect sketch. She must be young, fair, gentle, pure, tender of heart, noble in soul, with a kind of shy, sweet grace; frank, yet not outspoken; free from all affectation, yet with nothing unwomanly; a mixture of child and woman. If I love an ideal, it is something ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... which she did beguile me of my tears, but the deuce a one did she shed. What do you think? She cajoled me out of my little Buonaparte as cleverly as possible, in manner and form following. She was shy the Saturday and Sunday (the day of my departure) so I got in dudgeon, and began to rip up grievances. I asked her how she came to admit me to such extreme familiarities, the first week I entered the house. "If ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... mathematics; he did not, however, complete his course; not through laziness, but because, according to his notions, you could learn no more in the university than you could studying alone at home; and he did not go in for a diploma because he had no idea of entering the government service. He was shy with his fellow-students, made friends with scarcely any one, especially held aloof from women, and lived in great solitude, buried in books. He held aloof from women, though he had a heart of the tenderest, and was fascinated ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... shrivelled woman of the same age as her husband, with a face extraordinarily filled with deep wrinkles, and pale blue eyes. Her gray hair was arranged in ringlets according to the fashion of her youth. She wore a black dress, and her only ornament was a gold chain, from which hung a cross. She had a shy manner and ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... blow, alike to the affection and pride of Lord Fairfax, and wrought a change in both character and conduct. From that time he almost avoided the sex, and became shy and embarrassed in their society, excepting among those with whom he was connected or particularly intimate. This may have been among the reasons which ultimately induced him to abandon the gay world and bury himself in the wilds of America. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... friendliness was so much beyond my expectation that I at first feared treachery. However, treachery or not, I thought that while I was there I had better see and learn as much as I could. Women and men formed a ring round us, and the fair sex seemed less shy than the stronger in answering questions. I was particularly struck, not only in this encampment but in all the others, by the small number of women to be seen in Tibet. This is not because they are kept in seclusion; on the contrary, the ladies ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... men in those days, receiving regularly the poet's sunny recognition and the statesman's rather unsympathetic stare. Both men were overwhelmingly famous, but, touched simultaneously by warmth and frost, I, a shy youngster, could keep my balance in their presence. Sumner in those years was the especial bete noire of the South and the conservative North, and the idol of the radicals—at once the most banned and the most blessed of men. I had, besides, a personal reason ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... felt a little in awe of an Earl, as she had never met one before, and was about to make a shy response, when a slight movement of her head showed her her own reflection in ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... self-conscious attitude a thorough training in the dance is a most effective remedy. The shy, constrained, awkward boys and girls mingle with their companions on terms of ordered freedom and equality. They are taught grace of movement; the spontaneous expression of their individuality is modified by contact with their associates; they acquire ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... inhabited, and which they had in some degree fortified with a palisade, burnt and levelled with the ground; they found also some cloaks and clothing which the Indians had brought to throw upon the house. They observed too that the Indians who were seen near the spot, looked very shy, and dared not approach, but, on the contrary, fled from them. This appeared strange to us, for the Admiral had told us that in the former voyage, when he arrived at this place, so many came in canoes to see us, that there ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... As soon as the foremost rank saw them they fell back at once in great disorder, which alarmed those in the rear, who thought they had been fighting. There was then space and room enough for them to have passed forward, had they been willing so to do; some did so, but others remained shy. All the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered with common people, who, when they were come within three leagues of their enemies, drew their swords, bawling out, "Kill, kill," and with them ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... game was good enough for me. I acted on my theory, and they got my money. Perhaps the theory of Bannerman was wrong. He claimed he knew just how the capitalists were robbing labor. Suppose we backed his theory with some money and got stung? I was now theory shy and I have stayed away from ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... mounted on a horse, who gallops in front, and while the animal pursues him, the others rush in and hamstring him with their knives. Ostriches are caught by throwing down poison at the spots where they feed. The Somali also hunt them, on the backs of their hardy little ponies. The ostrich is a shy bird, and is so blind at night that it cannot feed. A Somali, knowing this, providing himself with provisions for two or three days, sets off in search of them; showing himself to the ostriches, he is discovered, but takes care to keep at a distance. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... those renegades or breeds that were of the wild. He had crossed the trails of others at rare intervals. Therefore he did not know dogs as allies of men and so enemies to himself; rather Shady seemed some extra-shy wolf creature yet with sufficient courage to range in close to men. She seemed a ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... to Roger in the end, and confessed that she had once followed Hester to the village and back by this road. Hester had never guessed it, never in fact turned her back when once started, and it had been easy to keep her in sight. At the edge of the town Margarita had felt a little shy and apprehensive of her fate if discovered, so she had sat by the wood-side till Hester appeared again and followed her ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... had been seen walking up and down the terrace a few times with Lieutenant R—, the pensioners, when I spoke to them, answered me readily, though at first rather shy of talking of themselves or their adventures. At length I fell in with a fine old man, and sitting down on one of the benches facing the river, I began to tell him how much I honoured and loved all sailors, and how I longed myself ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... to give Janie her music-lesson every Wednesday afternoon.—We couldn't do without Miss Lisle, could we, Janie?" The girl was shy and did not speak, but a broad smile overspread ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... a boyish individual Harmony had never met before. For the first time it struck her that Peter was young. He had always seemed rather old, solid and dependable, the fault of his elder brother attitude to her, no doubt. She was suddenly rather shy, a bit aloof. Peter felt the change and thought she was bored. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... attractive altogether. Doctor Brudenell liked them both, but he preferred the elder, as most people did. He enjoyed a visit to Petersham Villa—it was almost the only house with whose inhabitants he was upon really easy and familiar terms, for he was by nature a shy and retiring man. He had got into the habit of confiding in cheerful Mrs. Leslie, but he seldom talked to Kate, who was too diffident to make him forget that he also was inclined to be shy. Indeed he thought so little about her that he had not even a suspicion that in ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... New York. If he have the right stuff in him, a something will take possession of him that will grip him again every time he returns to the scene and will make him long and hunger for the place when he is away from it. Later, the lights in the busy streets will bewilder and entice him. He will feel shy and helpless amid the hurrying crowds. A new emotion will take his heart as the people hasten by him,—a feeling of loneliness, almost of grief, that with all of these souls about him he knows not one and not one of them cares for him. After a while he will find a place and give ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Years' War, and there has since been no demand for any. Austria has no fresh air at all—never did have any, and therefore has never felt the need of having any. Italy—the northern part of it anyhow—is also reasonably shy ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... fact, his daring prediction of twelve miles per hour struck the learned counsel with horror. They objected that horses would fly in terror from such a monster. He replied that horses had been known to shy at wheelbarrows. They tried to make him admit that the wheels would slip on the smooth rails, but he knew that they would bite without teeth. One of the committee said, "Suppose that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... invoked alive, Fairy clouds from hives of honey Like no angry human hive, Billows of brightness swift and sunny, Pattering, chuckling, panting haste, Rosy-shy—though never sweeter Than the three her arms embraced— Heaven's ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... It was a daisy-like charm differing in kind from the charm of Eve Sylvester, which was that of a violet or a child, perpetually perfuming the air. It could be traced at last—for she had not a good feature—to the possession of a pair of very soft, and shy, brown eyes, and of a voice, simply agreeable in conversation, which burgeoned out in song into the richest contralto imaginable, causing her to be known widely in society as "the Miss Masters who sings." Indeed, she had a wonderful ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... theirs, not yours: you cannot bear this in mind too diligently. All considerations of pleasantness of site must succumb to this. You must fix on such a situation as not to cut up the run, by splitting off a little corner too small to give the sheep free scope and room. They will fight rather shy of your homestead, you may be certain; so the homestead must be out of their way. You MUST, however, have water and firewood at hand, which is a great convenience, to say nothing of the saving of labour and expense. Therefore, if you can find a bush near a stream, make your ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... usual drawbacks of African travel. As the river pools were the only drinking-places for birds and game, the gun supplied not only my own party, but I had much to give away to the Arabs in exchange for goat's milk, the meal of the dome nuts, &c. Gazelles were exceedingly numerous, but shy, and so difficult to approach that they required most careful stalking. At this season of intense heat they drank twice a day—at about an hour after sunrise, and half an ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... name, Nor by her sister's brilliancy Nor by her beauty she became The cynosure of every eye. Shy, silent did the maid appear As in the timid forest deer, Even beneath her parents' roof Stood as estranged from all aloof, Nearest and dearest knew not how To fawn upon and love express; A child devoid of childishness To romp and play she ne'er would go: Oft staring through the window pane ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... gray skirts, silver hat with a single velvet rose on the brim to match the soft rose-bloom on her cheeks. Gila with eyes as wide and innocent as a baby's, cupid mouth curved sweetly in a gracious, shy smile, and dainty little prayer-book done in gray suede held devoutly ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... laugh is on an old boy with benevolent side-whiskers, who's sliding down the balusters, and a fat old party, who looks like a bishop, that's bumping his way down with his feet sticking out straight in front of him. Shy away from these things that end in an ism, my boy. From skepticism to rheumatism they've an ache or a pain in every ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... be left with himself; nevertheless, he had been well aware that these things were largely responsible for the hurry of the priest's departure. At first he had not been surprised at the silence of Peggy, for he had grown accustomed to the shy modesty of women who are Indian-bred. The women of Keewatin accept it as their fate that they are born to be subservient to men—to be their burden-bearers. But at the end of a few days, when her demeanour had shown ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... wanted during a year the sows should be put to the boar during the first heat after weaning. Many breeders do not like to pass periods of heat for fear that the sows may become "shy," and there is little reason why a sow should not have two litters a year. In any case, the sows should be carried on comparatively light feed until time to breed again, gaining a little in weight; and their treatment after breeding ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... conversation. But it seemed to her that she had lost her confidence. The freemasonry of old acquaintance which existed between all of them left her outside an invisible but very real circle. Words came to her with difficulty. She felt stupid, almost shy. When she made an effort to break through it she was acutely conscious of her failure. Her laugh was too hard, it lacked sincerity or restraint. The cigarette which she smoked out of bravado with her coffee, seemed somehow out of place. When at last luncheon was over Mannering left his ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said Mary, with a shy look at Tom. "But wouldn't you just as soon sit on a bench in the garden? It's moonlight there, ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... the time was rather an experiment, only it answered, as many of Mr. Gray's deeds of daring did. It was curious how he was growing to be a kind of autocrat in the village; and how unconscious he was of it. He was as shy and awkward and nervous as ever in any affair that was not of some moral consequence to him. But as soon as he was convinced that a thing was right, he "shut his eyes and ran and butted at it like a ram," ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... preparation against accidents showed the same nervous and imaginative fearfulness. "His bridle," says the late Lord B——, who rode frequently with him at Genoa, "had, besides cavesson and martingale, various reins; and whenever he came near a place where his horse was likely to shy, he gathered up these said reins and fixed himself as if he was going at a five-barred gate." None surely but the most superficial or most prejudiced observers could ever seriously found upon such indications of nervousness any conclusion against the real courage of him who was subject to them. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... replied, "but it isn't a case of rattles with me. I'm shy with the mazume, and it looks now as if that little trip to the minister's will have ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... angry man is as good as another One of her "I think it's sos" is worth the Bible-oath Outside observers see results; parents see processes Passive endurance is the hardest trial Priests that had no wives and no children, or none to speak of Shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy Slow to accept marvellous stories and many forms of superstition So long as a woman can talk, there is nothing she cannot bear Some people think that truth and gold are always ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... possibly keep aloof. For my part I feared her patronage. I remember when I was about seventeen - a self-conscious hobbledehoy - Mr. Ellice took me to one of her large receptions. She received her guests from a sort of elevated dais. When I came up - very shy - to make my salute, she asked me how old I was. 'Seventeen,' was the answer. 'That means next birthday,' she grunted. 'Come and give me a kiss, my dear.' I, a man! - a man whose voice was (sometimes) as gruff as hers! - a man who was beginning ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... at Picaninny Lahoo. Only one canoe has come off to us. The natives are shy of all strange vessels, in consequence of a French man-of-war having fired upon one of the neighboring towns, a few days since. It seems that a French merchant-barque was wrecked here, by running ashore. The master saved ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... theatre, for she had been preceded by some other enterprising actress, with whom the lessees had been less stringent, and who had come to grief, much to their disgust. The costumers and the printers, too, were shy of unknown dames with stage ambitions, and their co-operation was not to be obtained without a ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... tenement, a cripple from the mines to talk over his career, whether it should be pencils or shoe strings, or a hand organ, or some attempt at handicraft; the head of a local labor union paying some pittance to Laura, voted by the men to help her with her work; a shy foreign woman with a badly spelled note from her neighbor, asking for flower seeds and directions translated by Laura into the woman's own language telling how to plant the seeds; a belated working mother calling for the last little tot in the nursery and explaining her delay. Laura ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... its tall head on high; When the crimson-tinted evening fades From the glowing saffron sky; When the sun's last beams Light up woods and streams, And brighten the gloom below; And the deer springs by With his flashing eye, And the shy, swift-footed doe; And the sad winds chide In the branches wide, With ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... amusement in his face. He did not know whether he dared to laugh or not, and was too much afraid to try. The girl was aware of his embarrassment and became shy in her turn. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... particularly new one, nor clean one, but her face, tear-stained, was pressed against it, and he understood her ancient and most honorable message. There was almost ecstasy in waking her and seeing her smile at him, shy but well aware of her own ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Run away? Mebbe he would if he was a black. But he's a grizzly, and the boss of this country. He may fight shy of this valley for a while, but you can bet he ain't goin' to emigrate. The harder you hit a grizzly the madder he gets, an' if you keep on hittin' 'im he keeps on gettin' madder, until he drops dead. If you want that bear bad enough we can surely ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... me, Cecil,' he said in his most cheery tone—knowing that the lad usually formed one of the choir when at home, and thinking that his ill success at school had made him shy of facing the other choristers, who probably knew all ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... darting, scornful; it tosses its analogies in your face; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart," says E. P. Whipple. "Wit is intellectual, humor is emotional; wit is perception of resemblance, humor of contrast—of contrast between ideal and fact, theory and practice, promise and performance," writes another authority. While yet another points out that ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... to keep my rooms for me till I comes back, slip out o' the 'ouse, and into the fust 'ansom I meets, and back to the Halbany. And a month arter that, I shall come into my chambers at the Halbany, fling Voltaire and Parini into the fire, shy me 'at at the bust of good old 'Omer, slip on my blue suit agen, and back to ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... Mary Grace on her visits from house to house. If it is remembered that I was only eight and a half when this scheme was carried into practice, it will surprise no one to hear that it was not crowned with success. I disliked extremely this visitation of the poor. I felt shy, I had nothing to say, with difficulty could I understand their soft Devonian patois, and most of all—a signal perhaps of my neurotic condition—I dreaded and loathed the smells of their cottages. One had to run over the whole gamut of odours, some so ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... included—and coming into office with a moderate mixed party. It will be a great evil if the Government is broken up just now, but it is quite clear that they cannot go on long; it is a question of months. The Duke of Wellington told me yesterday that he could do nothing, and he will be rather shy of giving to the world a second volume of that old business in which he got so bedevilled two ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... fast they are less in evidence, being naturally shy after years of persecution. In summer they keep mainly at the back of the willows, away from the river, so long as the latter ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... Sylvia was gentle and good enough; but Philip wanted her to be shy and tender with him, and this she was not. She spoke to him, her pretty eyes looking straight and composedly at him. She consulted him like the family friend that he was: she met him quietly in all the arrangements for the time ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to incur the displeasure, or challenge the power, of the Lianhan Shee, by, driving its victim out of the parish. The opinion of these persons was, in its distinct unvarnished reality, that Father Felix absolutely showed the white feather on this critical occasion—that he became shy, and begged leave to decline being introduced to this intractable pair—seeming to intimate that he did not at all relish adding them to ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... the very man; and the best part of it was, he was shy of taking her at first. He talked a good deal about honour, and conscience, and deceiving some dear friend; but, ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... matter. "She must have clothes!" thought I, "and that's flat!" Perhaps not such as befitted her, but something immediate, and not in tatters—something stout that threatened not to part and leave her naked. For the brier-torn rags she wore scarce seemed to hold together; and her small, shy feet peeped through her ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... so shy, my pretty woman," said he, and then we could hear her struggling up and down the floor. I was climbing the ladder, in the midst of it, my face burning with anger, and D'ri was at my heels. As the door opened, I saw she had fallen. The trooper was bending to kiss her. I had him by the collar ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... And when th' manager fun it aat, he said if I'd gone soft o'er Betty, it were no reason why aw should go soft o'er mi wark, and he towd me to do mi courtin' i' th' fields and not i' th' factory. But it were yeasier said nor done, aw can tell yo', for Betty were a shy un, and bided a deal o' ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... kinder shy, kase me'n you's a visitin'. I 'low we's gotter move on, Miss Ann." The old man's face was drawn with woe. "I kinder felt it a bad sign when Marse Jeff Bucknor up'n took hisse'f off to Lou'ville, an' now this talk 'bout the fambly a goin' ter furren parts an' a shuttin' up Buck Hill. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... pale and scared, gathered Aida into her arms. At the same time Ann removed herself from Jimmy's. She did not look at him. She was feeling oddly shy. Shyness had never been a failing of hers, but she would have given much ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of the r's that had probably been acquired abroad. And she lost no time in telling him, she was eager to tell him, that she had been waylaying him. "I did so want to talk to you some maw," she said. "I was shy last night and they we' all so noisy and eaga'. I p'ayed that you might come ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... with his eye, he must insinuate them into his auditory by some trick of eye, tone, or gesture, or he fails. He must be thinking all the while of his appearance, because he knows that all the while the spectators are judging of it. And this is the way to represent the shy, negligent, retiring Hamlet. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... didn't even mention Mrs. Saltram and the children. Late into the night we smoked and talked; old shames and old rigours fell away from us; I only let him see that I was conscious of what I owed him. He was as mild as contrition and as copious as faith; he was never so fine as on a shy return, and even better at forgiving than at being forgiven. I dare say it was a smaller matter than that famous night at Wimbledon, the night of the problematical sobriety and of Miss Anvoy's initiation; but I was as much in it on this occasion as I had ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... was once a garden-ground Dull red-bloomed sorrels now abound; And boldly whistles the shy quail Within the vacant ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... hit it that time in the bull's-eye, suh," admitted the Southern lad; "and I confess that I thought it half an hour later. I'm still some shy, it seems, on telling time by the ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... envious of riches, and so ashamed of their poverty, that they entertained no desire to avail themselves of the invitation. Others, what is more, fostered such a dislike for, and stood in such awe of, lady Feng that they felt bitter towards her and would not accept. Others again were timid and shy, and so little accustomed to seeing people, that they could not muster sufficient courage to come. Hence it was that despite the large number of female relatives in the clan, none came but Chia Lan's mother, ne Lou, who brought Chia Lan with her. In the way of men, there were only Chia ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... fantastic column, which affords him a moral support. He begins to hold up his head as he walks; he is conscious that he has a means of bringing his powers to bear on a given point; he looks you straight in the face; his gestures are quick and decided; only yesterday he was diffident and shy, any one might have pushed him aside; to-morrow, he will take the wall of a prime minister. A miracle has been wrought in him. Nothing is beyond the reach of his ambition, and his ambition soars at random; he is light-hearted, generous, and enthusiastic; in short, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... and started and blushed when she saw him. She had been crying; there were red rings around her blue eyes, and her pretty lips were swollen. She tried to smile at Thomas's father, and she held out her hand with shy welcome. ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the children to send to ye. But we've always paid our share in keeping up the school for others that was more favored, and now it looks as if He had not forgotten us, and ez if"—with a significant, half-shy glance at her husband and a corroborating nod from that gentleman—"ez if, reelly, we might be reckonin' to send you ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Fitzjames Stephen[39] roused himself to thrash a big boy who had long bullied him, and became a fighter. In his sixteenth year, he grew nearly five inches, but was so shy and timid at Eton that he says, "I was like a sensible grown-up woman among a crowd of rough boys"; but in the reaction to the long abuse his mind was steeled against oppression, tyranny, and every kind ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... this is an island, there are not likely to be a great many, and once they are shot at they will become shy. See anything, my lad?" he cried to the man in the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... follies are all sweet-humoured, they smile. Its beauties are a quick and abundant shower. The delicate phrases are so mingled with the flagrant that it is difficult to quote them without rousing that general sense of humour of which any one may make a boast; and I am therefore shy even of citing the "brisk cherub" who has early sipped the Saint's tear: "Then to his music," in Crashaw's divinely simple phrase; and his singing "tastes of this breakfast all day long." Sorrow is a queen, he cries to the Weeper, and when sorrow would be ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... wanton, or I more shy, And after the bath I drew my garments close, Fearing thy soft persuasion amongst my hair When thou camest fresh with the ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... delicately fair skin, contrasted with braids of dark brown hair. She was rather above the ordinary height, slender, and graceful, and the childish beauty of the form or face and features surprised him; but to his mind the chief grace was the shy, sweet tenderness, happy and bright, but tremulous with the recent pain of the parting from home. With a kindly impulse, he said, 'You must tell me your name, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spires Of solemn cypress frame the descent Upon the blue, and open to sea— Here grew Ianthe maiden slim With none to spy but this gnarled man-brute; Most fair, most hid, like a wood-flower Slim for lack of light; so she grew In flowering line of limb And flower of face, retired and shy, Urged by the bland air; unknown, Lonely and lovely, husbanding Her great possessions—hers now, Another's when he cared to claim them. For thus went life: to lead the herds Of pricking deer she saw the great stags Battle in empty glades, then mate; Thus on the mountains chose the bears, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... up many factional differences from various causes, some personal, others political, and some, I regret to say, from downright moral obliquity—as, for example, those between Cortinas and Canales —who, though generally hostile to the Imperialists, were freebooters enough to take a shy at each other frequently, and now and then even to join forces against Escobedo, unless we prevented them by coaxing or threats. A general who could unite these several factions was therefore greatly needed, and on my return to New Orleans ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... officer of the regular army who had taken early advantage of the relaxation of the rule preventing such from accepting a volunteer appointment. A man of medium size, with light hair and sandy beard, his manner was rather diffident and shy, and his whole style quiet and reticent. His voice was light rather than heavy, and he was so laconic of speech that this, with his other characteristics, caused it to be commonly said of him that he had been so long fighting Indians on the frontier that he had acquired some of their traits ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... These require to be fed the same as turkeys. They are generally so shy, that they are seldom to be found for some days after hatching; and it is very wrong to pursue them, as many ignorant people do, under the idea of bringing them home. It only causes the hen to carry the ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Why, Lila—" the old man looked up and saw the girl, "bless my eyes, child, how you do grow, and how pretty you look in your new ginghams—just like your mother, twenty years ago!" Amos Adams was talking to a shy young girl—blue-eyed and brown-haired, who was walking out of the store after buying a bottle of ink of Miss Calvin. Lila spoke to the old man and would have gone with him, but for the booming voice of ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping with the godless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it him. Visits him here on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there's a gentleman to see you. Me? Says ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... assemblage in her own house; and if her choicest guests courted her notice as little as they would have done any where else, she was too much elated and flustered, and overheated to think about it. One of her principal concerns was to keep her eye on her husband, who, being a shy, timid man, with very little tact, was not much calculated for playing the host on such an occasion. He had, however, been doing better than she expected, when, a little before supper, he wandered through the crowd to where she was standing, for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... tombstones were crowded so thickly together that it seemed as if the dead must lie beneath them row on row. It was all in deep shadow, fallen slabs, rank periwinkle, dust and mould—no cheerful sunshine had ever penetrated through the spreading cedars overhead. Life was here, but it was the shy life of wild creatures, approaching man only when he had returned to earth. A mocking-bird purled a love note in the twilight of a great black cedar, a lizard glided like a gray shadow along one of the overturned slabs, and ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... quite sure that it isn't because she is my daughter that I think so. But, all the same, I'm afraid she'll never be as popular as Lucy is. She is so distant and overbearing to men that they are shy of her." ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the blindness of this insufferable ass? Don't you see, man—don't you see that she is waiting to throw herself into your arms? and you, you poor ninny, are giving yourself airs, and doing the grand heroic! And then the shy coquetry comes in again. The pathetic eyes are full of a grave compassion, if he must really never see her more. The cat plays with the poor mouse, and pretends that really the tender thing is gone away at last. He will take this half ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... anxious that it should reach you as soon as possible. If the obligations, Curio, had only been on your side, and as great as they are usually proclaimed by you rather than as valued by me, I should have been more shy of coming to you for any request of importance which I might have to make. For it is very disagreeable to a modest man to ask a great favour from one whom he thinks under an obligation to himself, lest he should seem rather to ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... up like a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; to see ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... its gray turrets and towers piercing the amber air, its ivied walls, and tall stacks of chimneys, Catheron Royals came in view at last. The fallow deer browsed undisturbed, gaudy peacocks strutted in the sun, a fawn lifted its shy wild eyes and fled away at their approach. Over ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... force my way past the edge of the mystery, the sinister shadow which wrapped her round, and penetrate to the heart of it? I recalled her beauty, childlike yet sullen; her eyes, so forthright at times and transparently innocent, yet at times so swiftly clouded with suspicion, not merely shy, but shy with terror, like the eyes of a wild creature entrapped; her bearing, by turns disdainful and defiant with a guarded shame. This turf, these boulders, had made her bower, these matted creepers her curtain. Here she had lived secure among savage men, each one of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... The slightest possible tinge of additional colour was in her cheeks. She was walking on the top of a green bank, with the wind blowing her skirts around her. The turn of her head was a little diffident, almost shy. Her eyes were asking him questions. At that moment she seemed to him, with her slim body, her gently parted lips and soft, tremulous eyes, almost like a child. He drew a little nearer ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... favoured region until he came upon the buffalo sign—"roads", "wallows", and "bois de vache;" and next morning he found himself in the midst of vast herds, roaming about like tame cattle, and browsing at their leisure. So little shy were they, they scarce deigned to ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... in silence, till we reached our journey's end,—I too tired, he too reserved, too preoccupied, or too shy, to speak again; but when, at last, we were seated with our cigars on the Deacon's door-step, he turned suddenly to me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "So you shy at that? You dare to spoil my game? Come, now! Four murders or three. Does it not come ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... touch of the fighting spirit in the trait called aggressiveness. He is rarely shy or retiring. To do well, he must be prepared for rebuffs, and he is possessed of a species of courage and resistance against refusal and humiliation. In the highest form the persuader is a teacher ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... droll way of answering: she was always so lively. It is really rather wonderful that I should come to hear so much about him, all through Mr. Hans knowing Rex, and then my having the pleasure of knowing you," Anna ended, looking at Mrs. Meyrick with a shy grace. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... knew it all; but she held her peace. The Bishop also had held his peace, and a little bit for the same reason that Catia had done. He knew the theological history of Scott Brenton; he knew that, like all half-broken colts, he easily might shy at first sight of the harness; yet, once with the harness on and fitted to his back, he would fall to work in earnest and pull steadily with the best of them. And it was the pulling that the Bishop wished, not the mere jingling of the farthingale. Under the last incumbent, Saint Peter's ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... I was no longer shy. Nature prompted me to an act of gallantry that gratified the lady immensely. Falling on my knees, I glued my lips to the delicious spot, pushing my tongue in as far as I could, and sucked it. It was quite spunky; I had no doubt ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... girl who was standing out against her people, to a gathering that consisted of a very old lady with an extremely wrinkled skin and a deep voice who was wearing what appeared to Ann Veronica's inexperienced eye to be an antimacassar upon her head, a shy, blond young man with a narrow forehead and glasses, two undistinguished women in plain skirts and blouses, and a middle-aged couple, very fat and alike in black, Mr. and Mrs. Alderman Dunstable, of the Borough Council of Marylebone. These ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... starvation of thousands of Englishmen on the sands of Holland. If English policy was once more to become a real and serious thing, it was plain that the great need of the nation was the dismissal of Buckingham. But Charles clung to Buckingham more blindly than his father had done. The shy reserve, the slow stubborn temper of the new king found relief in the frank gaiety of the favourite, in his rapid suggestions, in the defiant daring with which he set aside all caution and opposition. James had looked on Buckingham as his pupil. ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... entered without any definite design, further than, as Crozier said, to "have a shy at the tiger." Besides, as they have been told, a night in San Francisco would not be complete without a look in ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... can show. George! I tell you in confidence I don't like the looks of Mr. Sedley's affairs. My chief clerk, Mr. Chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's an old file, and knows 'Change as well as any man in London. Hulker & Bullock are looking shy at him. He's been dabbling on his own account I fear. They say the Jeune Amelie was his, which was taken by the Yankee privateer Molasses. And that's flat—unless I see Amelia's ten thousand down you don't marry her. I'll have ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... still sat talking as if he forgot that he should have to go out in the rain. In the midst of a laugh which had prevented their hearing a premonitory knock, the door opened, and Mrs Grey's twin daughters entered, looking half-shy, half-eager. Never before had they been known to come out in heavy rain: but they were so very desirous to see cousin Margaret after she had been in the water!—and Sydney had held the great gig umbrella over himself and them, as papa would not hear of Sydney not coming:—he was ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... much was Norman, who continued to see many perfections in George, and contrived, by the force of his belief, to impress the same on the others, and to make them think his great talent for silence such a proof of his discretion, that they were not staggered, even by his shy blundering exclamation that his wedding would be a great nuisance—a phrase which, as Dr. May observed, was, to him, what Est-il-possible was to his namesake ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... of September came all too soon, and school began. Among the boys and girls who went trooping up to the "East Corner knowledge-box," as they called it, was our friend Ben, with a pile of neat books under his arm. He felt very strange, and decidedly shy; but put on a bold face, and let nobody guess that, though nearly thirteen, he had never been to school before. Miss Celia had told his story to Teacher, and she, being a kind little woman, with young brothers of her own, made things ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... wives and children—as Billy had. The other feeling, which came later on, and was a reaction in fact, was the feeling of a man who thinks he's been twisted round a woman's little finger for the benefit of somebody else. Billy said that he couldn't help being reminded by the shy, sweet smile and the shy, sweet "thank you" of the Pretty Girl in the Army, of the shy, sweet smile and the shy, sweet gratitude of a Sydney private barmaid, who had once roped him in, in the days before he was married. Then he'd ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... a great difference what kind of fox you use, however. I once had a fox on my Pumpkin Butte estates that lasted me three years, and I never knew him to shy or turn out of the road for anything but a loaded team. He was the best fox for hunting purposes that I ever had. Every spring I would sprinkle him with Scotch snuff and put him away in the bureau till fall. ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... grew older if she had wished to escape she would not have dared, would not have known how; for she was shy outside the family circle, and could hardly move or talk; people thought her insignificant. This she knew; it wounded her self-respect, and therefore she went out as little as possible, preferring to stay at home, where she was simple, natural and taciturn. This silence did not arise from ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Kate determined not to quarrel with Hender, but to avoid speaking to her of Dick. Even with her own people she maintained an attitude of shy reserve until Dick arrived, declining on all occasions to discuss the subject, whether with her husband or mother-in-law. 'I don't care whether he comes or not; decide your quarrels as you like, I've had enough of them,' was her invariable answer. This ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... lost his father. In future, when you send such a shy Englishman to me, let me know beforehand that he comes to talk over something with me. I had the greatest wish, and leisure too, to do all he wanted, but discovered only after he was gone that he came to ask ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... amongst the noisy group, and that one was Hans. His parents perceived with anxiety that the little noisy child had grown into a silent, shy boy, who avoided the games of his comrades and dreamingly went his own way. For hours he sat in the garden on the bench near his mother's flowers, and gazed dreamingly at the busy bees and butterflies, or lay in the woods near by and stared up through the branches of the beech-trees ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... your kindness cannot reach me. The first alternative is hard, but the second too grievous for impaired powers of endurance; I must therefore find what expression I may, and tell you how my life has been beshrewed ever since, a boy of twelve, I first incurred the obloquy of being shy. The word slips easily from the pen though the lips refuse to frame it; for I think most men would rather plead guilty to a vice than ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... into two broad currents. And strange to relate, the majority of her own sex took her part, and the males were but equally divided; which hardly happens once in a hundred years. Perhaps some lady will explain the phenomenon. As for me, I am a little shy of explaining things I don't understand. It has become so common. Meantime, had she been a lover of notoriety, she would have been happy, for the town talked of nothing but her. The poor girl, however, had but one wish to escape the crowd ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... which I set down at the end of the last paragraph drifted me somewhat from the regular thread of my narrative. This, perhaps, is not the only reason why I should stumble and shy along like a balky palfrey when I approach one of the trifling accidents which transpired immediately ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... slender lad, with corn-silk hair and wide blue eyes. He was shy and timid, not strong physically, dreading the cold of winter, and avoiding the rougher sports of his playmates. And yet he was full of the spirit of youth, a spirit that manifested itself in the performance of many ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... spells ruin to us if our clients—customers, I mean—fight shy of us, and we shall be worse off than if I had never meddled with the matter,' he ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... revelled and rejoiced were awake, and called Hagar and her child. Can we not see them in the gray of the morning? The father, the mother, the child,—the patriarch, aged, but not bowed by age, still retaining the vigour of manhood—the boy shy, yet half-defying—the mother! In such an hour, all distinctions of rank and station would be forgotten, and all the feelings of the woman be roused. Then and there Hagar might well forget that she was Sarah's bondmaid, and only ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... from his dreams, the Hunter was descending the stairs. He too was anxious to quit the church, but where to go he did not know. His heart throbbed when he saw Lisbeth; she lifted her eyes and stood still, shy and artless. Then, without looking at each other, they went in silence to the door, and the Hunter laid his hand on the latch to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... "special adaption" to this purpose, except as to profusion of bloom and habit of growth. Drooping plants are desirable to trail over the sides of the box, and add that touch of grace which is characteristic of all vines. Plants that bloom freely throughout the season should be chosen in preference to shy and short-season bloomers. Geraniums, Petunias, Verbenas, Fuchsias, Salvias, Heliotropes, Paris Daisies—all ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll. Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of their neglect and their breach of promises. I continued, however, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... naked. Their houses were some in the water and some inland, and were all neatly and well built; their fields were well cultivated, and the paths to them kept clear and open, in which respects Dorey is abominable. They were shy at first, and opposed the boats with hostile demonstrations, beading their bows, and intimating that they would shoot if an attempt was made to land. Very judiciously the captain gave way, but threw on shore a few presents, and after two or three trials they were permitted to land, and to go about ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... rascallion, go, mind your duty; this gentleman and I belong to the service; but be sure you look after that shy cock in the slouched hat that sits in the corner of the coach. I believe he's one of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... earnest feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... which he inadvertently set his foot snapped across. The splendid shy eyes of the deer looked round in alarm as he bounded away. A shot rang through the forest after him, waking such a clamour of jays and crows and woodpeckers, that Arthur was quite provoked with them, they seemed exulting over his failure. Pushing ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... where the shy brook fluttered through, Nepenthe held her chalice leaf (Undrained as yet by human grief), And ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... the other are pressed against each other, until they become all but united, and the various play of muscles on the part of both becomes so delicately significant that the bridle, to a great extent, becomes unnecessary, and the rider feels when the horse is about to shy, just as quickly as the horse feels, by a gentle pressure on either side, how much the rider wishes him to diverge to ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... near and under the statue of our Blessed Mother. There in my arm-chair I sit, with the old cloak wrapped round me that sheltered me many a night on the mountains. And there the little children come, not a bit shy or afraid of old "Daddy Dan." They pick their way across the new carpet with a certain feeling of awkwardness, as if there were pins and needles hidden somewhere; but when they arrive at safe anchorage, they put their dirty clasped fingers on my old cassock, toss ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... eyebrows and a graceful figure, always rosy and attractive-looking, but in her face and in her whole person there was not one striking feature, not one bold line to catch the eye, as though nature had lacked inspiration and confidence when creating her. Tatyana Ivanovna was shy, bashful, and modest in her behaviour; she moved softly and smoothly, said little, seldom laughed, and her whole life was as regular as her face and as flat as her smooth, tidy hair. My uncle screwed up his eyes looking after her, and smiled. Mother looked intently at his smiling ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... would be alone, she would— make love, I suppose it must be called—with her eyes and her hands, and her very skirts and her fan, and the cushion, and the footstool. The room was always beautiful and always dim, and she would greet me with outstretched hands and a shy smile, making room for me beside her on the sofa—she always sat on a sofa. We would talk of nothing at all perhaps but look into each other's eyes, until the force of her look would draw me close, close to her till we were almost in one another's arms, and I could ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... rivals, were very different in character and disposition. Instead of possessing the self-confidence, energy, and industry that brought Dickens fame in his youth, Thackeray had to contend with a somewhat shy and vacillating temperament, with extreme modesty, and with ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... laughing, though feeling a little shy at their appearance as they issued out of the courtyard. Speedily, however, they gained courage as they saw that passers-by paid ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... answer letters just as you answer men—promptly, courteously, and decisively. Of course, you don't ever want to go off half-cocked and bring down a cow instead of the buck you're aiming at, but always remember that game is shy and that you can't shoot too quick after you've once got it covered. When I go into a fellow's office and see his desk buried in letters with the dust on them, I know that there are cobwebs in his head. Foresight is the quality that makes a great ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... turning out favourable to the conclusion at which you are aiming, advance the desired conclusion,—although it does not in the least follow,—as though it had been proved, and proclaim it in a tone of triumph. If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the trick may easily succeed. It is akin to the fallacy ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Run it down—run in panting, you might say. Said I had to have her and she shied at first, but that didn't make any difference, for I was there three times a day till she saw it wasn't any use to shy any longer; so she gave in and I caught the first preacher that happened to be hanging around and he soon pronounced us one and the same kind—something of the same sort. Go right down that street and you'll see calico on my clothes line most any time. Say, it will be a pity if they hang that ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... younger sister, Marie, who was twelve or thirteen years of age, the second daughter of Charles, Duke of Calabria, who had died before her birth, and whose mother, Marie of Valois, had unhappily been lost to her from her cradle. Exceedingly pretty and shy, she seemed distressed by such an assembly of great personages, and quietly drew near to the widow of the grand seneschal, Philippa, surnamed the Catanese, the princesses' governess, whom they honoured as a mother. Behind the princesses and beside ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... freshness of her spontaneous ease was infectious, and the shy man's answering laugh showed how it had caught his soul. "Is that all?" says he. "That's soon done—Sally! You know, I do call you Sally when I speak to ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the reluctance of the Parish Authorities—once bitten, twice shy—to let the Parish Room again as a School after the legal difficulty about getting rid of the tenant, but to their credit be it said they made an exception in favour of music—with a proviso. The late Mr. James Richardson, when a young man, it is on record, applied to ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... silver about the boats in the offing. Out yonder Gwennolar sang and took her toll of life as before; but the people heeded less, and soon forgot even when their dearest perished. Other things than sorrow they began to unlearn. They had been a shamefaced race; the men shy and the women chaste. But the Stranger knew nothing of shame; nor was it possible to think harm where he, their leader, so plainly saw none. Naked he led them from the drinking-bout down the west stairway to the bathing-pool, and naked they plunged in and splashed around ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the answer, given in a shy voice, astonished him. It was his turn to be embarrassed and he strove to turn the ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... And straggling into ocean as it might. Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray, Close on the wild wide ocean,—yet as pure And fresh as Innocence; and more secure. Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep, While, far below, the vast and sullen swell Of ocean's ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... very respectable 'ouse'old—a publican's, at the 'Four Alls' by Binton Bridges. Me bein' shy—as you may 'ave noticed— I 'adn't, as you might say, put it to 'er; an' likewise until the matter was settled I didn' like to tell 'Enery. But I interjuced 'im—the same bein' 'er Sunday out; an' afterwards, when ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him down. There were so many knives and forks and glasses on the table, such a deal of food that was absolutely strange to him. The butler behind made him shiver. Hitherto in Merritt's investigations into great houses he had fought particularly shy of butlers and coachmen and upper servants of that kind. The butler's sniff and his cold suggestion as to hock slightly raised Merritt's combative spirit. And the champagne was poor, thin stuff ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... maid steals through the shade Her shepherd's suit to hear; To Beauty shy, by lattice high, Sings high-born Cavalier. The star of Love, all stars above, Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know— But ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... chair, as it is convenient to be carried over the streams when they are deep. You will laugh when I tell you that I have forded all the smaller ones." But there is scarcely any record of these journeys of hers, she was too modest and shy to dwell on what only related to herself; and though she several times, with the help of her Burmese interpreter, led the devotions of two or three hundred Karens, it was always with a sense of reluctance, and ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... soon as the foremost rank saw them they fell back at once in great disorder, which alarmed those in the rear, who thought they had been fighting. There was then space and room enough for them to have passed forward, had they been willing so to do; some did so, but others remained shy. All the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered with common people, who, when they were come within three leagues of their enemies, drew their swords, bawling out, "Kill, kill," and with them were many great lords that were eager to make ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... tastes they liked the solid, honest meals—especially since increasing War-prices were already inducing hotels and restaurants everywhere to disguise a tablespoonful of hashed oddments under an elegant French name and sell it for as much money as a dinner for a hungry man. Norah used to fight shy of the famous "lark-pudding" until it was whispered to her that what was not good beef steaks in the dish was nothing more than pigeon or possibly even sparrow! after which she enjoyed it, and afterwards pilgrimaged to the kitchen to see the great blue bowls, as big as a ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... girl is shy and awkward, as yet," Dick said, "but I think she will be plucky enough, when the time comes. You heard what we said. The first thing will be to get her disguise ready for her. What do you think? Had we better take Ibrahim with us? I think he is to ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... the narrow hall. "They may josh you some at first. That's part of starting out in the world. Keep a civil tongue in your head and if you don't mind 'em they'll soon quit. If they don't it's up to you to find the way to get on with 'em. Half of life is learning to shy round the corners of the folks about you. And old Tim, who used to be gardener for Mr. Crowninshield's father and has been in the family 'most half a century, bides here, too. A rare soul, Tim. You'll like him. Everybody does. Simple as a child, he ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... than sense—sweetheart," she said, with a shy boldness that startled her. The last word was spoken into the snow-matted fur of her muff, but Jack ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... never at a loss for words; his eloquence is native, and whether it be the impassioned oratory of a political speaker or the society small-talk of a young man in the presence of ladies, he is never shy, and his flow of language and gesture is as natural to him as reserve and brevity to the Englishman. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon, especially the Briton, seems repellant in comparison with the Spanish-American, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... works at night, a regrettable circumstance, which does not allow me to follow the worker's methods. I see the result; and that is all. Were I to visit the building-yard by the light of a lantern, I should be no wiser. The animal, which is very shy, would at once dive into her lair; and I should have lost my sleep for nothing. Furthermore, she is not a very diligent labourer; she likes to take her time. Two or three bits of wool or raphia placed in position represent a whole night's work. And to this slowness we must add ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... have been very shy of one another in these circumstances, but these two were not thus troubled; Pandora, because she was too well accustomed to society, and Christie because she was too much excited by the unwonted circumstances. Pandora drew Christie out ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... not a hawser," growled the man, hauling in the rope. "Better shy a few anchors down too, you ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... as another One of her "I think it's sos" is worth the Bible-oath Outside observers see results; parents see processes Passive endurance is the hardest trial Priests that had no wives and no children, or none to speak of Shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy Slow to accept marvellous stories and many forms of superstition So long as a woman can talk, there is nothing she cannot bear Some people think that truth and gold are always to be washed for Swap him for a 'yallah dog,'—and then shoot the ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... are rather philanthropists interesting themselves for the laboring-classes, than the laboring people themselves) are shy of admitting the interference of authority in contracts for labor: they fear that if law intervened, it would intervene rashly and ignorantly; they are convinced that two parties, with opposite interests, attempting to adjust those interests by negotiation through ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... jealousy of those despotic states of Italy, I find that several of them, at Florence as well as at Sienna, were considered as dangerous meetings, and in 1568 the Medici suddenly suppressed those of the "Insipids," the "Shy," the "Disheartened," and others, but more particularly the "Stunned," gli Intronati, which excited loud laments. We have also an account of an academy which called itself the Lanternists, from the circumstance that their first meetings were held at ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... said Weary, and rose pacifically. "I kinda believe you myself, Andy. But you can't blame the boys none; you've fooled 'em till they're dead shy of anything they can't see through. And, besides, it sure does look like a plant. I'd back you single-handed against a dozen sheepherders like then two we've been chasing around. If I hadn't felt that way I wouldn't have sent ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... total strangers in the country. There was something so peculiar in their looks, air, and manner, that she was uneasy in their company. They would not come near the fire; they sat in a remote part of the lodge, were shy and taciturn, and drew their garments about them in such a manner as nearly to hide their faces. So far as she could judge, they were pale, hollow-eyed, and long-visaged, very thin and emaciated. There was but little light in the ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... steadfast. The little fellow came bravely to my aid in my grapple with the traitor before Acre; and when the blow had fallen on Richard, the boy's grief was such that I loved him ever after. And of late I have had no truer trustier warrior. I warrant me he was too shy to tell thee that I knighted him last year in the midst of some of the best feats of arms I ever beheld against the Welsh! Whatever John de Mohun saith is sooth, and I would rather mate my daughter with him than with many ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sometimes, and they've got a soft spot for Americans, like all the Frenchies here. Take it from me, you'd better draw out quietly, instead of being arrested, tried, shot, or imprisoned maybe—or being sent home with an unproved charge hanging over you, and having all your friends fight shy of you as a suspected ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... made to feel himself of weight and importance, his aversion subsided, and he almost learnt to look forward to a chat with Mr. Nugent; or whether he looked forward to it or not, there could be no doubt that he enjoyed it. Though still shy, grave, silent, and inert, there was a great alteration in him since the time when he had had no friends, no interests, no pursuits beyond his study; and there was every reason to think that, in spite of ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an umbrella, and always with a cigar. I quite missed him on the Derby day, when of course he was gone to Epsom (by-the-bye, why don't we go to the Derby just as much as to Ascot?); and yet it was rather a relief, too, for I had got almost shy about passing him. It seemed so absurd to see the man every day and never to speak; besides, I fancied, though of course it could only be fancy, that he looked as if he was expecting me. At last I couldn't help blushing, and I thought he saw it; for I'm sure he smiled, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Hosts should beware of wits who cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to Lady MacGregor, and Stephen wondered if she would be afraid of the elderly fairy with the face of a child and the manner of an autocrat. But she was not in the least shy; and indeed Stephen could hardly picture the girl as being self-conscious in any circumstances. Lady MacGregor took her in with one look; white hat, red hair, blue eyes, lily at belt, simple frock and all, and—somewhat to Stephen's ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... other said musingly. Then, after another thoughtful pause: "Say, I suppose you're a little shy about bracin' these employment ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... that one highly distinguished, who lived and died so recently, should have almost entirely escaped observation until he had reached middle life. From fragments of his early history which have been collected, we learn that he was a peculiar boy,—shy, reticent, fond of solitary walks, without playfellows, and utterly insensible to the attractions of home and social life. He was born with inflexible reserve; and the love of retirement so manifest in in later life mastered all his instincts ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... take one unnecessary step which in its judgment may tend to add to the number of its adversaries or to its vulnerable points in some particular section of the country. All of the 435 members of the House and one-third of the Senators come up for re-election in November of this year—they, too, are shy and sensitive. Some legislation, notably child labor after it had been endorsed by the National Democratic platform, successfully ran the gauntlet but not so our Federal Suffrage Amendment. It is with keen regret your committee reports that it has not had ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... German, and I hate German; most abominable language I have had to tackle yet. Stick Bismark up on that gate, and we will shy from the other side of the road. Stick him up, I say, ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... prowisions. Vat is vanted is wittles. Vat is vanted most is wegetables. Bears and vild turkeys inwite themselves to be shot, but potatoes keep wery shy, and ve suffers for ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... him—God will not pass him by. He will take him by the hand and lead him home." The old man had thought her touched by delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by the poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and farseeing. David had come by his idealism honestly. The half-mystical spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through the filter of a woman's sad soul. It had come to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... felt awed and shy with her as they might with a stranger. Ezra stopped his whispering. Naomi glanced timidly up, her head held sideways ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... Cultivate also, if shy and timid by nature, self esteem sufficient to imagine that you are quite the equal of those with whom you are about to meet. This resolution will enable you to say what you wish without fear of mistake, and without showing too much ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... two to take, and one of them was seatless. Hilda dropped into the whole one. Billy sat down on the doorstep. The twins sat upon the board edge of the bottomless chair. Cricket remained standing, with the blanc-mange still in her hand. All of them, shy, as children always are in the presence of poverty and sickness, stared ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... waiting for you out there in the future. She hopes and prays that when you do find her, you will be such a man as can be honored and truly loved. She probably keeps herself for you, even though you have not yet met her, with some delicate and shy reserve. You will never really be worthy of all that she will give you, but you may at least prepare for her and yourself a great and holy experience. To know the full beauty of the thing that married life may be is nearly ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... put her off if they wished. And the profit of her plan, the effect of the violence she was willing to let it go for, was exactly in their BEING the people in question, people she had seemed to be rather shy of before and for whom she suddenly opened her mouth so wide. Later on, we may add, with the ground soon covered by her agitated but resolute step, it was to cease to matter what people they were or weren't; but meanwhile the particular sense of them that she had taken home to-night had done her ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... behavior of her brothers had occasioned. On the other hand, it delighted him to see her do anything that ordinary children did. He was charmed if she could be induced to take part in a noisy romp, play tag, or dress her dolls. But there followed usually after each outbreak of natural mirth a shy withdrawal into herself, a resolute and quiet retirement, as if she, were a trifle ashamed of her gayety. There was nothing morbid in these moods, no brooding sadness or repentance, but a touching solemnity, a serene, almost cheerful seriousness, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... as we shall see, spring some of his most characteristic traits. He is a man vexed, at one and the same time, by delusions of grandeur and an inferiority complex; he is both egotistical and subservient, assertive and politic, blatant and shy. Most of the errors about him are made by seeing one side of him and being ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... Comfort came in she stopped short at the sight of the company, and had to kiss them all and answer their questions with shy politeness. Comfort was very fond of her grandmother, but this time she did not feel quite so delighted to see her as usual. As soon as she had got a chance she slipped into the pantry after her mother. "Mother," ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Her hand shook a little as she put down her teacup, for she was shy of taking the initiative. "I think I know what she would say. In our time it would probably have been different, on account of the family—and heredity; but Mabel is a modern girl. And a modern girl would say that she isn't to marry the father but the son. She loves him, so I'm certain she would ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... the stars; else why star-shape the dew For the unbreathing, shy, heart-hiding rose? And when earth darkens, and the North wind blows, Why into stars, flake every cloud's black brew? What fitter forms for longings high and true, Man's hopes, ideals, than bright orbs like those Asbine ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... fully equal in this respect [sport] to the fox; but as the pack was not sufficiently numerous to kill these animals at once, they always suffered so severely from their bite that at last the members of the hunt were shy in allowing the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... she continued the shy unfolding of her ideals. "Nothing is too good for boys; no training is high enough, because they are to be the builders and upholders of our Empire. Don't you think that little girls, who are destined ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... cloths and white veils flutter at the casements overhead. You would hardly think that the spectacle was one daily enjoyed by the city. There is all the hurrying and eagerness of novelty and curiosity. Here and there a little shy crowd of women gather at a door and salute the Chief with a loud shrill verse of discordant song. It is some national song of the Chiefs ancestors and of the old heroic days. The place of carousal is a bare spot near a large and ancient well out of which grows a vast pipal tree. Hard ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... hand,—"only I wish so that you would go to the Aylmers instead of home. That protegee of Mrs. Aylmer's—the little singing girl—would touch your heart with her voice. On hearing her, one thinks at once of some shy wild bird high in a clear sky,—far enough above earth to have forgotten to ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the little soprano asked me in a shy, conscious way if my friend were quite well. Had I ever fancied his brain affected? I might have answered with a simple negative: I shall always think a little better of myself, Steve, that then and there, in the full bewitchment of Miss Sparrow's presence, I had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... and nephew of his more than he could ever have imagined himself liking any young people. They had been shy with him at the outset—and for the first week his experiment had been darkened by the belief that, between themselves, they did not deem him quite good enough. He had been wise enough, then, to have it out with the girl—she was the one to whom he felt it easiest to talk frankly—and had discovered, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Lelantine plain. Now, because the writings of those poets were set to verse and so made the argument more knotty and the decision more arduous, and the great names of the antagonists, Homer and Hesiod, whose excellence was so well known, made the umpires timorous and shy to determine; they therefore betook themselves to these sorts of questions, and Homer, says Lesches, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Matthew Pole himself, when he arrived, do much to help matters. He was so hopelessly English. At least, that was the way Ann put it. He was shy and sensitive. It is a trying combination. It made him appear stupid and conceited. A lonely childhood had rendered him unsociable, unadaptable. A dreamy, imaginative temperament imposed upon him long moods of silence: a liking for long solitary walks. For ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... the expediency of making it clearer came soon after with a visit from Mr. Evans, who brought his half-year's accounts of sales, and some small disappointment for him in those of Copperfield. "The accounts are rather shy, after Dombey, and what you said comes true after all. I am not sorry I cannot bring myself to care much for what opinions people may form; and I have a strong belief, that, if any of my books are ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... The Reformers, whose chairman was Mr. Charles Leonard, a solicitor of good practice in Johannesburg, were mostly men of the middle and professional classes. The capitalists, being anxious to keep in with the Transvaal Government, were somewhat shy of the National Unionists; while the working men on their side were suspicious of the motives of the Reformers, and were chary of lending themselves to any scheme which might conduce to the profit of the millionaires. The National Union clearly expressed its aims ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... through the branches of life. It was a sad thing for the world when it grew so busy that men had no time to talk. There are such treasures of knowledge and compassion in the minds of our friends, could we only have time to talk them out of their shy quarries. If we had our way, we would set aside one day a week for talking. In fact, we would reorganize the week altogether. We would have one day for Worship (let each man devote it to worship of whatever he holds dearest); one day for Work; one day ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... of water and dashed it in the face of Mr. Van Jool. There was a moment's scuffle, and no more of Mr. Van Jool. What emerged was a good deal like the shy Maurice Korust, who accompanied his brother at the music hall, but whose distaste for these gatherings had been Andrea's continual lament. The Baron de Grost stepped back once more against the wall. His host was certainly looking dangerous. Mademoiselle Celaire was leaning forward, staring ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Napoleon was always a shy, reserved, quiet boy. For hours long he could hide in some obscure corner of the house or of the garden, and sit there with head bent low and eyes closed, half asleep and half dreaming; but when he opened his eyes, what a life ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... watched with interest. At first the colt was shy, but gradually, under stimulus of its appetite, it drew nearer, then ran frisking away, again drew near. Ben held out the pan, shook it at intervals, displaying its contents to the best advantage. Colt nature could ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... the shore, growing, with sweet prudishness, beyond the grasp of mortal arm. But it does not escape me so. I know what is its fitting destiny better than the silly flower knows for itself; so I wade in, heedless of wet trousers, and seize the shy lily by its slender stem. Thus I make prize of five or six, which are as many as usually blossom within my reach in a single morning;—some of them partially worm-eaten or blighted, like virgins with an eating sorrow at the heart; others as fair and perfect as Nature's ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which he found it impossible to break, filled Philippe with remorse. At that moment, he experienced a feeling of aversion for that capricious and unreasonable little girl, who had brought about those compromising minutes between them. Unaccustomed to women and always rather shy in their company, he suspected ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... he would not be put off—he asked her for a kiss, whereat she grew angry. Then, for he was no shy wooer, he tried to take it by force; but she was strong and active and slipped from him. Instead of being ashamed, he only laughed after his uncanny ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... which all women, even the least coquettish, contract so readily, distinguished her still further from an ordinary peasant-woman. In her ignorance as to what was before her, and having no means of judging Madame Graslin, she appeared very shy and shame-faced. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... chapel; but they knew she was grateful for the food, and it had become all they could do for her in the hard struggle she was having. The trees were growing bare; the flowers were few and without scent; the birds did not sing any more, but were shy, and twittered and complained, while the swallows were restless, like those going a long journey. Singing time was over, life burning down, it was natural to be silent and to sigh ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... of mine, I seek above the surf of hedgerow line Where peeping branches reach, and reaching twine Faint cherry or plum or eglantine. But with pretence of whisperings The year's young mischief-wind shall take By storm these shy striplings, And soon or later shake Their slender limbs, and make Free with their clinging may— Strip from them in a single boisterous day Their first and last vesture of pale bloom spray. So, as to meet such lack ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... three feet high. To get the easier down, I swung myself by a wild-cocoanut—(so called, it bears bunches of scarlet nutlets)—which grew upon the brink. As I so swung, I received a crack on the head that knocked me all abroad. Impossible to guess what tree had taken a shy at me. So many towered above, one over the other, and the missile, whatever it was, dropped in the stream and was gone before I had recovered my wits. (I scarce know what I write, so hideous a Niagara of rain roars, shouts, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lanning a severe lesson. He still remained down upon the young oarsman, but in the future he fought shy of our hero, knowing that Jerry would not ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... travel. As the river pools were the only drinking-places for birds and game, the gun supplied not only my own party, but I had much to give away to the Arabs in exchange for goat's milk, the meal of the dome nuts, &c. Gazelles were exceedingly numerous, but shy, and so difficult to approach that they required most careful stalking. At this season of intense heat they drank twice a day—at about an hour after sunrise, and ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... a tuck has to be let down in her frocks, then a great difference becomes visible. The boy goes on racing and whooping and comporting himself generally like a young colt in a pasture; but she turns quiet and shy, cares no longer for rough play or exercise, takes droll little sentimental fancies into her head, and likes best the books which make her cry. Almost all girls have a fit of this kind some time or other in the course of their lives; and it is rather a good thing ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... and his family, and then he went home to Elzbieta. He was no longer shy about it—when he went in, instead of saying all the things he had been planning to say, he started to tell Elzbieta about the revolution! At first she thought he was out of his mind, and it was hours before she could really feel certain that he was himself. When, however, she had satisfied ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... white, with black primaries. The bare parts of the head and face are carmine. It is a very locally distributed species, in some sections being practically unknown, while in a neighboring locality it may be rated as common. They are very shy birds and are not easily obtained. They nest either upon the solid earth or in marshy places over the water. In either case the nest is a very bulky mass of grass and weeds from two to three feet in ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... opposite to his visitor, who was obviously as shy as a schoolgirl in his presence, and surveyed ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... the Saxon capital. He was entering Dresden on a late afternoon brown with German sunshine. The school year had begun, but a loitering summer-time brightened city and countryside. As he made his way slowly through the throng at the station, he gave evidence of a rather shy way of looking up and about, an apologetic readiness to step aside, to yield place, not characteristic of the speedy American in Europe. He had not, as we have said, come to Germany for adventure. He had not come merely to ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... had been his constant counselor and tormentor, about the time when she was beginning to feel a little shy and long-legged, in her short skirts, who had, in a romantic sympathy with his tastes, opposed his going into a "store" as a clerk, which seemed to the boy at one time an ideal ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as he grew in stature and the years led him to the time when childhood passes into youth he became more chary of his words and quieter in his tone: at times, indeed, he was so shy that he would blush in the presence of his elders, and there was little sign left of the old forwardness, the impulsiveness of the puppy who will jump up on every one, master and stranger alike. Thus he grew more sedate, but his company was still most fascinating, and little wonder: ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... seven day bill for 55 pounds in his pocket when James found him on the Embankment. He thought he couldn't get any money for it until the seven days were up; and he was too shy to ask for credit. Oh, he's a dear boy! We are very ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... originality and vigor, with that suggestion of deepest meaning which is so much more effective than definite statement. "December XXXI." gives us a new and delightful treatment of a subject which the poets have made us rather shy of by their iteration. We would signalize also, as an especial favorite of ours, "The Two Villages," and still more the very striking poem "At Last." But, after all, we are not sure that the Ballads are not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... leaves are a bright shining green, of a long narrow oval, delicately notched like the edges of a rose-leaf; and the plant emerges from beneath the snow in the early part of the year, as soon as the first thaw takes place, as fresh and verdant as before they were covered up: it seems to be a shy blossomer. I have never seen specimens of the flowers in bloom but twice; these I carefully preserved for you, but the dried plant will afford but an imperfect idea of the original. You always called, you know, your dried specimens corpses of plants, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... it exploring, though I may have a shy at the Andes on the way. These fits come upon me at intervals, Constantia, as you know, ever since you determined to ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... peace, two events occurred which portended war. Leopold II died; and an irritating despatch, which he and Kaunitz had recently sent to Paris, was read out to the Legislative Assembly. Thereafter a rupture was inevitable. Francis II, who now ascended the throne of his father, was a shy, proud, delicate youth of twenty-four years, having only a superficial knowledge of public affairs, scarcely known to the Ministers, and endowed with a narrow pedantic nature which was to be the bane of his people. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... horse did not shy at the shot, neither did it check its pace for a moment, but ran straight on and soon placed its master alongside of another buffalo cow. In the meantime, Pemberton loaded like lightning. He let the reins hang loose, knowing that the horse understood his work, and, ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... lived who had to do with the Orphan Schools, and whom the curate was obliged to see; and Miss Wodehouse gave him a timid invitation to come back to dinner. "But you are not to go home to dress; we shall be quite alone—and you must be so tired," said the elder sister, who for some reason or other was shy of Mr Wentworth, and kept away from him whenever he called. So he went in on his way back, and dined in happiness and his morning coat, with a sweet conscious return to the familiar intercourse which these few disturbed weeks had interrupted. He was a different man when he went back again ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the causes of form-change, of evolution, as far as possible outside the living organism. With Darwin we seek the transforming factors in the environment rather than within the organism itself. We fight shy of the Lamarckian conception that the living thing obscurely works out its own salvation by blind and instinctive effort. We like to think of organisms as machines, as passive inventions[457] gradually perfected from generation to generation by some external agency, by environment ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... cab came to a halt. But instead of the fine face and distinguished presence of Mr. Bassett Oliver, he found himself confronting a young man who looked like a well-set-up subaltern, or a cricket-and-football loving undergraduate; a somewhat shy, rather nervous young man, scrupulously groomed, and neatly attired in tweeds, who, at sight of the two men on the pavement, immediately produced ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... And even when he is not dealing directly with themes or situations closely related to that life, there may be felt in his style, I think,—particularly in that of the "Twice-Told Tales,"—a union of vigorous freedom, and graceful, shy restraint, a mingling of guardedness which verges on severity with a quick and delicately thrilled sensibility for all that is rich and beautiful and generous, which is his by right of inheritance from the race of Non-conformist colonizers. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Christian social service opens many doors. There are Sunday afternoons to be spent with the shy pupils of the High Caste Girls' Schools at the opposite end of town. In the outcaste village beside the rice fields we may find the other end of the social scale—twenty or thirty little barbarians whose opening exercises must start ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... in her hands, shy as a fawn, but with a certain resolution, too, the trouble of her soul still ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... wife when he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Smith says: "My patent has come to-day, and I have taken my seat at the Board, who address me as 'Sir' in every sentence. It is strange, and makes me shy at first; and I have to do what I hardly like—to send for them, not to go to them; but I am told they expect me, as their chief, to ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... might struggle to have my way? I shall, of course I shall! I never was a meek martyr, and never shall be. But one can't help having qualms, though one doesn't tell them to one's sisters and cousins and aunts. And sometimes'—she turned her chin round on her hand and looked at him with a delicious shy impulsiveness—'sometimes a stranger sees clearer. Do you think me a monster, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... impressions perverted and adulterated; the all-venerable visage disconcerts us by a vain eagerness to see itself mirrored in English, American, German eyes. It isn't simply that you are never first or never alone at the classic or historic spots where you have dreamt of persuading the shy genius loci into confidential utterance; it isn't simply that St. Peter's, the Vatican, the Palatine, are for ever ringing with the false note of the languages without style: it is the general oppressive feeling that the city of the soul has become for the time a monstrous mixture of watering-place ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... affectionate in their manners than those of Mexico. In fact, a foreigner, especially if he be an Englishman, and a shy man, and accustomed to the coolness of his fair countrywomen, need only live a few years here, and understand the language, and become accustomed to the peculiar style of beauty, to find the Mexican ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the hero Lakshman too His garment from his shoulders threw, And, in the presence of his sire, Indued the ascetic's rough attire. But Sita, in her silks arrayed, Threw glances, trembling and afraid, On the bark coat she had to wear, Like a shy doe that eyes the snare. Ashamed and weeping for distress From the queen's hand she took the dress. The fair one, by her husband's side Who matched heaven's minstrel monarch,(312) cried: "How bind they on their woodland dress, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... men and professional men fleeing headlong from their jobs in Wall Street, Broadway, and Fifth Avenue, and hiring out to farmers and boarding house keepers under assumed names. One could jump a young man out of almost any likely thicket north of the Bronx; they were as plentiful and as shy as deer in the Catskills; corn field, scrub, marsh, and almost any patch of woods in the State, if carefully beaten up, would have yielded at least one or two ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... (Roberts), Lancashire (Sephton), Derbyshire (Walker), Northumberland and Durham (Mawer).] Thus the name Oakley must generally have been borne by a man who lived on meadow land which was surrounded or dotted with oak-trees. But I should be shy of explaining a given village called Oakley in the same way, because the student of place-names might be able to show from early records that the place was originally an ey, or island, and that the first syllable is the disguised ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... love; Love in Homer; Wood, Shelley; Macaulay, Bulwer, Gautier; Sentimentality; No love of romantic scenery; Incest; Jealousy; Homeric women not coy; Women the embodiment of lust; Masculine coyness; Shy women; War and love; Mercenary coyness; Mixed moods in love; Amorous hyperbole; Artificial symptoms; Sympathy denounced by Plato; Estimate of women; Unchivalrous; Risking life for a woman; Suicide and love; Love turns to hate; Woman-love considered sensual; Attitude toward ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Jeb, nodding. "She came down here once as a bit of a girl, dancing over the sands like a water kelpie. The old Captain didn't care much for women folks, but he was sot on her sure. Then she come down agin as a bride, purty and shy and sweet; but the old man warn't so pleased then,—growled he didn't know what girls wanted to get married for, nohow. So you're her boy!" The old man's eyes softened as they rested on Freddy. "You've got a sort of look of her, though you ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulders a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity; and mutually relieving each other, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As they ascended, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... perhaps probable, that there may be an inner Planet, but, so far as we know for certain, Mercury is the one nearest to the Sun, its average distance being 36,000,000 miles. It is much smaller than the Earth, its weight being only about 1/24th of ours. Mercury is a shy though beautiful object, for being so near the Sun it is not easily visible; it may, however, generally be seen at some time or other during the year as a morning or ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... lasted only a moment, for, as Jeanette, shy, and dewy-eyed, held out her arms to her new-found friend, quite suddenly Lucile knew. Impulsively she threw her arms about the older girl and drew her close, whispering, softly, "Tell me all you feel you can, Jeanette; ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... "Ho! ho! ho! can such in very truth be the case? Let us two then go to the house." And she answered, "Yes," and she rose up in the water as beautiful as the wild white hawk, and stepped upon the edge of the bath as the shy white crane; and he threw garments over her and took her, and they proceeded to his house, and reposed there; and thenceforth, according to the ancient laws of the Maori, they were ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
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