"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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 ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... 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
... Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson's presence[775].' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek poet[776], to ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... 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
... shy of men; aren't we, Adele?" he said to his sister. "Even Jim seems to have disappeared. Not that I mind being the only pebble on the beach,—far from it,—but I'm afraid I can't prove entertaining enough ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... 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
... shy at first and quiet. From time to time she was in a fair way to break down his reserve; but he seemed to catch himself becoming more friendly and, once or twice, after laughing at something, he relapsed into ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... 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 |
