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More "Diffidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to begin with; just got into Committee on Home-Rule Bill; CHARLIE (my DARLING) was to have opened Debate with Amendment on first line of First Clause; but, as he subsequently explained to sympathetic Committee, he was weighed down with feeling of diffidence. House, touched with this unusual weakness on part of Member for Deptford, readily accepted volunteered service of CHAMBERLAIN, who undertook to say a few words on another Amendment whilst ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... circles and pentacles. Nancy, Miss Broughton's heroine, tells her middle-aged wooer, among other things, that she accepts him, because "I did think it would be nice for the boys; but I like you myself, besides." After this ardent confession, he "kissed her with a sort of diffidence." Many men would have preferred to go ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... Colchester. Bentham's dislike of his step-mother increased the distance between him and his father. He took his M.A. degree in 1766 and in 1767 finally left Oxford for London to begin, as his father fondly hoped, a flight towards the woolsack. The lad's diffidence and extreme youth had indeed prevented him from forming the usual connections which his father anticipated as the result of a college life. His career as a barrister was short and grievously disappointing to the parental hopes. His father, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... things was academic, and he had not realized that there was need to constitute the nations before laying down rules for the League; he trusted that bringing them together with mutual pledges would further most efficiently the cause of peace among the peoples. On the other hand, there was diffidence, shared by both, between Wilson and Lloyd George, and there was little likelihood of the British Prime Minister's move checking the ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... Montefiore said: "My Lord Mayor, my Lords and gentlemen, if I consulted my own feelings of diffidence on this occasion, I confess I should have remained silent, and have allowed my friend and colleague to return our united thanks for the honour conferred on us by the distinguished company. But as custom demands ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... but, allow me to say, that the mere dividing of a dotted crotchet into a crotchet and a quaver, is not a great matter: however, in that I have no pretensions to cope in judgment with you. Of the poetry I speak with confidence; but the music is a business where I hint my ideas with the utmost diffidence. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... enemy could not accuse him of diffidence, proved a solid spoke but for a few days only. Rachel suddenly broke all ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... an idea of the anti-slavery cause. At Nantucket he was sought out of the vast audience and requested by William C. Coffin, of New Bedford, where he had heard the fervid eloquence of the young man as an exhorter in the Colored Methodist Church, to make a speech. The hesitancy and diffidence of Mr. Douglass were overcome by the importunate invitation to speak. He spoke: and from that hour a new sphere opened to him; from that hour he began to exert an influence against slavery which ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... prying eyes there, and Watt wished to do his work in privacy, determined "not to puff," he at length fixed upon an outhouse still standing, close behind the mansion, by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the subject of remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his anxiety seemed quite painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful nature was his mainstay throughout. Watt himself ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... I add that I think one or the other of them must be an impostor," added Captain Battleton with some diffidence. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... "When two natives of any other country chance to meet abroad, they run into each other's embrace like old friends, even though they have never heard of one another till that moment; whereas two Englishmen in the same situation maintain a mutual reserve and diffidence, and keep without the sphere of each other's attraction, like two bodies endowed with a repulsive power." Letter XXXVI gives opportunity for some discerning remarks on French taxation. Having given the French ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... done enough—to use his own words—to break the neck of the day's work. But with all his diligent and indefatigable industry, and his immense knowledge, the result of many years' patient labour, Scott always spoke with the greatest diffidence of his own powers. On one occasion he said, "Throughout every part of my career I have felt pinched and hampered by ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Private Key, very suspicious and uncertain and guilty. Chairs were found and the three took their seats around the punch bowl. Peter gave them each a highball and offered them a cigarette from his case. They accepted both with some diffidence. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... to be a little raised, at least so soon as Pamela knows the Gentleman's Love is honourable, and when [7th: "her"] {his} Diffidence is changed to Ease: And from about the fourth Day after Marriage, it should be equal to the Rank she is rais'd to, [del. 4th] ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... himself from time to time brought up with a certain surprise, as he discovered, under all his savage cynicism, his overweening devotion to a depressing theory, a very real vein of refinement, of delicate mundane sensibility, revealed perhaps in a chance phrase or diffidence, or more often in some curiously fine touch to canvas of his rare, audacious brush. The incongruities of the man, his malice, his coarseness, his reckless generosity, gave Rainham much food for thought. And, indeed, that parched ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... in your reception of guests; and where you see much diffidence, assist the stranger to throw ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... of the well-known dramatist, has won some renown as a ballad composer. She studied harmony and composition with Stainer and Prout, and after this excellent training spent much time in creative work. For a long time she let her songs remain in manuscript, out of diffidence as to their value. Finally Mme. Helen Trust, the singer, came upon them, and obtained permission to bring out the "Message to Phyllis." Its success was pronounced, and the composer was easily persuaded ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... than we are. Their indifference to the little arts we practise shows it. A woman whose head is bald covers it with a wig. Without a wig she would feel that she was an outcast totally powerless to attract. But a bald-headed man has no idea of diffidence. He does not bother about a wig because he expects to ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... the age of eight years he was entrancing, very much of a personage, and to Ishmael a delightful enigma. Nicky was so vivid, so full of passing enthusiasm, so confident of himself, with none of the diffidence that had burdened Ishmael's own youth. He was not a pretty boy, but a splendidly healthy-looking one, with fair hair, not curly, but rough, that defied all the blandishments of Macassar oil, and long limbs, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... and then, as he marked the listless manner in which the stranger pecked at the food on his plate. "Eat, man, canna ye!" he said, getting absolutely angry at his guest's want of appetite, which he construed into diffidence. "Lord, man, take a richt whang on your plate at once, and dinna be nibblin at it that way, like a mouse at a Du'lap cheese." Saying this, he seized a knife and fork, cut a slice from the cold round, an inch in thickness, and at least six in diameter, and threw it on the stranger's plate ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... Dr. Morris, except that to Mr. Riehl belongs, I believe, the credit of the idea of waxing the entire graft, which is now the accepted procedure. Therefore I speak before these two gentlemen with diffidence. I do so in the hope that perhaps I may recall something which they have forgotten to make known, or that what I say may elicit from them available emendatory remarks. My experience of fourteen years on my own place, and of five years grafting for others, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... Gypsies an origin quite different, as he believes, from any ever yet suggested: at least, what he believes to be the real origin of this singular race is not even hinted at in the more celebrated treatises. Conscious of the diffidence with which any one should approach a matter which so many learned men have labored over, he advances the plea of the proverb, that they who study the stars will stumble at stones,—a plea, that much learning and genius may fail, where less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... moment, Samson stood hesitant and overcome with diffidence; then, with set lips, he took his place, and experimentally fitted his fingers about a brush, as he had seen Lescott do. He asked no advice. He merely gazed for awhile, and then, dipping a brush and experimenting for his color, went to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... been in the same college as myself, and I had some slight acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence. In appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom, ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Loveday said with diffidence that it had not rained anything to speak of at the camp, or at the mill, so that her mother ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... some men, I believe, who have, or think they have, a very small share of vanity. Such may speak of their literary fame in a decorous style of diffidence. But I confess, that I am so formed by nature and by habit, that to restrain the effusion of delight, on having obtained such fame, to me would be truly painful. Why then should I suppress it? Why 'out of the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... paid twice for admission before sundown, and at night she came again. She betrayed extraordinary curiosity concerning the characteristics and peculiarities of missing links, and her concern had a powerful effect upon Mahdi. His diffidence was so marked that the Professor was constrained to excuse it in his descriptive address. "The poor animal is afflicted with toothache to-day," he said. "Like the best of us he has ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... appeared really distressing. And, in truth, Mr. Smelt himself, little imagining what had preceded the interview, was so much struck with his manner and looks, that he conceived him to be afraid of poor little me, and observed, afterwards, with what "blushing diffidence" he had ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... my grandfather with diffidence, for his heart was so stung with what he heard, that he could scarcely feign the necessary hypocrisy which the peril he stood in required—"Is this Mill in ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... told herself that she was an old woman, and suggested, with outward boldness but with inward diffidence, that Sir Nigel required a wife to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... opinion that my censorial power will not be useless to you, nor a sinecure to me. The sooner you make it both, the better for us both. I can now exercise this employment only upon hearsay, or, at most, written evidence; and therefore shall exercise it with great lenity and some diffidence; but when we meet, and that I can form my judgment upon ocular and auricular evidence, I shall no more let the least impropriety, indecorum, or irregularity pass uncensured, than my predecessor Cato did. I shall read you with the attention of a critic, not with the partiality of an author: ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... days in which, for no obvious reason, Lola received me with anxious frightened diffidence, and spoke with constraint. The cheerfulness which she had hitherto exhibited gave place to dull depression. She urged me continually to leave Berlin, where, as she said, I was wasting my time, and return to my work ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... and squirmed with the awkward diffidence of a schoolboy. What caused him to laugh, no one was able to explain. He was doubtless wrapped up in a brown study, and recalling some amusing episode, indulged in laughter without realizing his surroundings. The experience ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... his own merits as well as anybody did, he also knew his own imperfections, and estimated them at their real value. For example, his inability to speak in public, which produced the impression of extreme modesty or diffidence, he accepted simply as a fact in his nature which was of little or no consequence, and which he did not even care to conceal. He would not for many years even take the trouble to jot down a few words in advance, so as to be able to say something when called ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... conceal. She a second time bent her knee, to receive the crown; but she displayed less agitation and tremor than at first; she had just spoken; she had just filled her mind with the most noble thoughts, and enthusiasm conquered diffidence. She was no longer a timid woman, but an inspired priestess who joyfully consecrated herself to the ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... country's freedom, was upon a little island of the river Rhenus.[7] Their mutual suspicions were the cause of their meeting in a place where they had no fear of treachery; for, even in their union, they could not divest themselves of mutual diffidence. 2. Lep'idus first entered; and, finding all things safe, made the signal for the other two to approach. At their first meeting, after saluting each other, Augustus began the conference, by thanking ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity. The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded with great diffidence." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Jack Brocket's business capacities began to go up very considerably. He certainly seemed to have managed the matter wonderfully well. "You don't mean to say that you carry ghosts about in bags?" I remarked, with diffidence. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her hand stepped ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... and upon one occasion he took several of the more venturesome out to spear turtles, that Anne alone might be gratified. So far he had made no declaration, and often stared at her with an apprehension and a diffidence that seemed a travesty on the fettered and tortured soul that looked from Warner's eyes; but his purpose showed no wavering, despite the efforts of Lady Hunsdon and of Anne herself to bring him to the feet of Lady Mary. That his mother was uneasy was manifest. ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... engaged. But ordinarily it is attended and followed with shame and disappointment in the end. And there is, on the other hand, intolerable remissness and slackness in many, in pressing even the weightiest petitions of salvation, mortification, &c. which certainly ariseth from the diffidence and unbelief of the heart, and the want of that rooted persuasion, both of the incomparable necessity and worth of the things themselves, and of his willingness and engagement to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... There is a chauvinism of "boom" towns and religious sects, as well as of nations. What pride and self-confidence are to the individual, ethnocentrism, patriotism, local loyalty are to social unities. Diffidence, humility, self-distrust, tolerance, are as dangerous to militant groups as to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... remarked that she was much more easily depressed than elated about herself, and would be the better of a little more confidence—not to say conceit; but since their marriage he had never given her the slightest sympathy or encouragement to cure her of her diffidence. If anything were amiss in her dress or appearance, he told her of it in the offensive manner of an ill-conditioned under-bred man, generally speaking when they were out of doors, or in some house where she could do nothing to put herself ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... this jealousy, was inclined thenceforth not to trust his people, of whom he had even before entertained a great diffidence; and though obliged to make a separate peace, he still kept up connections with the French monarch. He apologized for deserting his ally, by representing to him all the real, undissembled difficulties under which he labored; and Lewis, with the greatest complaisance and good ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... being desirous to know how far he was orthodox; so I thought fit, on the suggestion of one of the elders, to ask him to preach one day for me, which, after some fleeching, he consented to do. I think, however, there was a true modesty in his diffidence, although his reason was a weak one, being lest he might not satisfy his mother, who had as yet never heard him. Accordingly, on the Sabbath after, he did preach, and the kirk was well packed, and I was not one of the least attentive ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... Therefore, without diffidence or hesitation—because I have explained myself—and prejudiced by an unalterable belief in the cause which I have had the honour and happiness to serve, it is proper that I bring my narrative of these three months ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... into their disputes, but 'the more we consider the point, the more nice and difficult it appears to us; for, as on the one hand great caution ought to be used to avoid giving alarm and creating such a diffidence in their minds as might induce them to quit the province, and by their numbers add strength to the French settlements, so on the other hand we should be equally cautious of creating an improper and false confidence in them, that by a perseverance in refusing to take the oath ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... to understand by description. They worked the ship, hove the log, changed the watch, turned out and tumbled in, with the callous indifference and stern regularity of clock work; inhabited tarpaulin dreadnoughts and sou'-westers; came down to meals with modest diffidence, and walked the deck with bantam-cock-like assurance. Nevertheless, they were warm-hearted fellows, both of them, although the heat didn't often come to the surface. The first mate was a broad Scotchman, in every sense of the term; the second was ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... driving strain passing through the springs, a strong arm is fixed on the differential wheel and attached to the rim as shown in Fig. 2, so that the springs have really no work to do beyond carrying the weight of the engine. Messrs. McLaren naturally felt a certain amount of diffidence in placing their invention before the public until they had thoroughly tested it in practical work. This, we are informed, they have done, with the most satisfactory results, during the last five or six months; and they have a set of springs which ran during that time between 2,000 and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... result of my visits to Flanders, the battlefields of France and divers of the great munition centres), some of which have already appeared in the press both in England and America, I do so with a certain amount of diffidence, because of their so many imperfections and of their inadequacy of expression. But what man, especially in these days, may hope to treat a theme so vast, a tragedy so awful, without a sure knowledge that all he can say must fall so infinitely ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... science the main part of education, for the great majority of mankind at any rate. And here, I confess, I part company with the friends of physical science, with whom up to this point I have been agreeing. In differing from them, however, I wish to proceed with the utmost caution and diffidence. The smallness of my own acquaintance with the disciplines of natural science is ever before my mind, and I am fearful of doing these disciplines an injustice. The ability and pugnacity of the partisans of natural ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... her life by this strong American, her eyes fixed on the faraway monastery, her heart still and cold and fearful. She had no confidant in this miserable affair of the heart. Others, near and dear, had surmised, but no word of hers confirmed. A diffidence, strange and proud, forbade the confession of her frailty, sweet, pure and womanly though it was. She could not forget that ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... despised that vain philosophy which believes it can explain all things, even God's nature itself, by the sole force of reason? or because, while respecting the dogmas proclaimed by our reason and our conscience, he preferred to follow the principles of a philosophy that argues with diffidence, and humbly owns its inability to explain all things, and which caused him to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... That placid dame, The moon's Celestial Highness; There's not a trace Upon her face Of diffidence or shyness: She borrows light That, through the night, Mankind may all acclaim her! And, truth to tell, She lights up well, So I, for ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... the question with extreme diffidence, but would not this broader education of future wives and mothers save perhaps so much new legislation on the subject of divorce as is now in progress in those parts of the country most ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... distinguished, and the reluctance to join in the defence of such, when unjustly accused? Too readily are the faults of a compeer rehearsed, and too slowly are her virtues acknowledged. Should the modesty of some one be commended, may it not be because her diffidence gives us room to pass before her in ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... boisterous and unsteady, seemed suddenly to have become once more the quiet, discreet-looking young Englishman who had first bowed to Mr. Coulson in the bar of the Grand Hotel and accepted with some diffidence his offer of a drink. To prevent his friend being jostled by the somewhat mixed crowd in which they then were, Mr. Gaynsforth drew nearer and nearer to him. He even let his hand stray over his person, as though to be sure that he ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pleased with our journey, and the occasion of it. May God bless you both with long life and health, to enjoy your sweet farm, and pretty dwelling, which is just what I wished it to be. And don't make your grateful hearts too uneasy in the possession of it, by your modest diffidence of your own unworthiness: for, at the same time, that it is what will do honour to the best of men, it is not so very extraordinary, considering his condition, as to cause any one to censure it as the effect of a too partial and injudicious kindness for the parents of one whom ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... timidly up and down, and then cleared his throat and began his tune with an air of great diffidence. ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... investigation does but establish his general view.[112] Such is the effect of M. Stapfer's chapter on Shakspere's Classical Knowledge;[113] and the pervading argument of that chapter will be found to hold good as against the view suggested, with judicious diffidence, by Dr. John W. Cunliffe, concerning the influence of Seneca's tragedies on Shakspere's. Unquestionably the body of Senecan tragedy, as Dr. Cunliffe's valuable research has shown, did much to colour the style and thought of the Elizabethan drama, as well as to suggest its themes and shape its technique. ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... With great diffidence we reply to the query of our learned friend. The force of tragedy consists in its depicting evil so ruinous as to involve even the innocent in the catastrophe; the pleasure is derived, we think, from the failure of the mischievous design, and the merited retribution ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... arrival affably as he stood towering over the telegraph operator. Then looking down at that person he added with awkward, back-country diffidence: "Stranger, be ye ther feller thet works thet ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... seemed to wait for a more particular command, before any one would offer at the undertaking; not through any backwardness to comply with Mrs. Teachum's request, but each from a diffidence ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... of that time speak of his eloquence. The gift of speech, the unequalled power of statement, which were born in him, just like the musical tones of his voice, could not be repressed. There was no recurrence of the diffidence of Exeter. His native genius led him irresistibly along the inevitable path. He loved to speak, to hold the attention of a listening audience. He practised off-hand speaking, but he more commonly prepared himself by meditating on his subject and making notes, which, however, he never ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... him, 'Go and stand before Pharaoh,' Moses for the moment forgot all about God's being his helper, and was full of all manner of cowardly excuses, which, like the excuses of a great many more of us for not doing our plain duty, took the shape of a very engaging modesty and diffidence as to his capacities. But God said to him, 'Surely I will be with thee.' He gave him back 'Eliezer' in a little different form. 'You used to say that I was your helper. What has become of your faith now? Has it all evaporated when the trial comes? Surely ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... bolder and more elevated mind, had he been as much distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would, beyond all doubt, have been without an equal. But there was a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence and want of force in his nature, which rendered it impossible that those evidences of ardor and animation which are proper to the more exalted character, should ever appear in him; nor did he at any time display one particle of that elevation which, could it but ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... because it was spoken in that feeble, hoarse voice characteristic of leprosy, and it was in itself most pathetic. The poor creature has won his way to a surprising confidence, dashed with a yet more surprising diffidence and doubt. He is sure of the power, but not of the willingness, of this wonderful healer. 'Thou canst,' does not make him confident, because it is weakened by 'If Thou wilt.' Faith, desire, humility, and submissiveness are beautifully smelted together in the wistful words, which are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... particularly, the objects of the persecutions and proscriptions of the times.—It is not unlikely therefore, that, although they were inflexibly steady in refusing their positive assent to any thing against their principles, they might have contracted habits of reserve, and a cautious diffidence of asserting their opinions publicly.—These habits they probably brought with them to America, and have transmitted down to us.—Or, we may possibly account for this appearance, by the great affection and veneration, Americans have always entertained for the country from whence they ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... said I. "But you must permit me to begin by reminding you that I am only a boy, and that this is my first experience of actual warfare; therefore if I venture to express an opinion on what has been justly described as a most momentous question, I do so with the utmost diffidence. At the same time, although I have had no previous experience of war, I should like to say that I have studied the subject deeply and with intense interest. And it is with equal interest that I have listened to the ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... occurs even so late as in Sir Thomas Brown, just at the dawn of the Newtonian system, and after Kepler. What a lesson of diffidence! [8] ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... between the music, Mrs Gilmour turned the conversation upon a matter of extreme interest to Master Bob, and one concerning which he had been in much doubt of mind for some time past; although his native diffidence had prevented him from personally broaching the subject ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... this bill and the kindred bills and amendments pending in the two Houses with unaffected diffidence. No problem is submitted to us of equal importance and difficulty. Our action will affect the value of all the property of the people of the United States, and the wages of labor of every kind, and our trade and commerce with all ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... may be admissible; but it is impossible not to perceive the weakness of those who judge these matters legibly written in the phrase, "and for his various other communications," which comes in as the frequent tail-piece to these awards. With a diffidence in their own powers, which might be more admired if it were more frequently expressed, the Council think to escape through this loop-hole, should the propriety of their judgment on the main point be called in question. Thus, even the discovery which made chemistry a science, ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... But, if she does so belong, it is very mainly due, not to any pre-eminence of narrative faculty, but to that gift of style which has been for nearly a hundred years admitted. Now I have in this History more than once, and by no means with tongue in cheek, expressed a diffidence about giving opinions on this point. I have, it is true, read French for more than sixty years, and I have been accustomed to "read for style" in it, and in divers other languages, for at least fifty. But ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... said wistfully and then she went on, with a note of diffidence and shyness which touched the older woman: "You and Bubbles have both been so kind to me—would you rather that I stayed on with you? I will if ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... taken for stupidity was only diffidence. Toni's brain, though not so highly specialized as his own, was a very capable, quick organ all the same; and in the lonely, dreary months of her absence Owen had learned to value at their true worth the precious ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... very, very beautiful, and young, and unhappy," he said irrelevantly, a darker glow in his cheeks. She smiled serenely, without a trace of diffidence or protest. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... them in heaven above and in earth below, which they were appropriating by their presence. And then the red faces made their way through the black biting frost to their own homes, feeling themselves free for the rest of the day to eat, drink, and be merry, and using that Christian freedom without diffidence. ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... says the Earl, with a kind of appealing diffidence. "If you have no very strong objection. He can be carried, Sir Coupland says, as soon as the wound is safe from inflammation. Of course he must not be left at ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... of thinking." Being misunderstood at home he withdrew more and more into his shell—thus forming a crust of reserve which was to be more or less a handicap to him all through life. For the Iron Duke, as he came to be called, never threw off his diffidence nor won the hearts of his soldiers, as did that ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... to comply with any meaning that can be extorted from the present text, rather than change it, yet will propose, but with great diffidence, a ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... confidence in his welcome, and a constant but indifferently successful effort to correct his natural incivility of manner and proneness to take offence. By his keen brows and forehead he is clearly a shrewd man; and there is no sign of straitened means or commercial diffidence about him: he is well dressed, and would be classed at a guess as a prosperous master manufacturer in a business inherited from an old family in the aristocracy of trade. His navy blue coat is not of the usual fashionable pattern. ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... at me before, he looked at me now in three or four quick successive glances. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said to my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the honour to mention ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... he continued, with some diffidence, "whether you'd care for a bit of work in my office, just to carry you along till things looked up. Blanche, she was set upon it that I should ask you anyway. Of course, you being a college young gentleman might not care about it, but there's times when any sort of a ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him a face flushed and eager, from which wounded eyes filmy with tears appealed to him. Her shyness, her diffidence, the childlike call upon his chivalry were wholly charming. She was a distractingly pretty woman, and she had thrown herself upon his mercy. Verinder began insensibly to soften, but he would not give up ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... the world—if her heart was disengaged. Now poor Elsie was as heart-whole as a girl could be, but her manner of refusing made him think of a number of little signs which looked as if she were the victim of a hopeless attachment. Her sadness, her poetry, her little sighs, her diffidence, her pining away, were all due to the shameful conduct of one who in happier days had sought her hand, and had deserted her when fortune changed. His pity for her increased, but his love did not. If she had the bad taste to prefer a sad memory ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... Diffidence given to the Public; because the Subject is rather obscure and uncertain. However, it is presumed that there are stronger Reasons for admitting the Truth of Prince Madog's landing on the American Shores, than for the contrary. ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... King's Lorton, the years had made striking changes in him since the day we saw him returning from Mr. Jacobs's academy. He was a tall youth now, carrying himself without the least awkwardness, and speaking without more shyness than was a becoming symptom of blended diffidence and pride; he wore his tail-coat and his stand-up collars, and watched the down on his lip with eager impatience, looking every day at his virgin razor, with which he had provided himself in the last holidays. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... The supple Gaul was born a parasite: Still to his int'rest true, where'er he goes, Wit, brav'ry, worth, his lavish tongue bestows; In ev'ry face a thousand graces shine, From ev'ry tongue flows harmony divine. [t]These arts in vain our rugged natives try, Strain out, with fault'ring diffidence, a lie, And get a kick[H] for awkward flattery. Besides, with justice, this discerning age Admires their wondrous talents for the stage: [u]Well may they venture on the mimick's art, Who play from morn to night a borrow'd part; Practis'd their master's notions ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... rhymed translation of "Hernani" was a performance calculated to add to it considerably. He was a very accomplished and charming person; good and amiable, clever, cultivated, and full of fine literary and artistic taste. He was singularly modest and shy, with a gentle diffidence of manner and sweet, melancholy expression in his handsome face that did no justice to a keen perception of humor and relish of fun, which nobody who did not know him intimately ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... it, my dear sir," corrected the ghost, with a rare smile in which courage struggled with diffidence. "Dear me, why do you ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... and expected my sentence. "Look ye, ladies," said I, "I see no difference in the least in your performance; but you Clidamira seem to be so well satisfied that I shall determine for you, that I must give it to Damia, who stands with so much diffidence and fear, after showing an equal merit to what she pretends to. Therefore, Clidamira, you are a 'pretty'; but, Damia, you are a 'very pretty' lady. For," said I, "beauty loses its force, if not accompanied with modesty. She that has a humble opinion of herself, will have everybody's ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... be permitted to suggest the following leading principles; but we do so with diffidence. Rich colours harmonize with rich brunette complexions and dark hair. Delicate colours are the most suitable for delicate and fragile styles of beauty. Very young ladies are never so suitably attired as in white. Ladies who dance should wear dresses of light and diaphanous materials, ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... we to ascribe so strange an antipathy? This question perplexed the Master's contemporaries; and any answer which may now be offered ought to be offered with diffidence. [222] The most probable conjecture is that he was actuated by an inordinate, an unscrupulous, a remorseless zeal for what seemed to him to be the interest of the state. This explanation may startle those who have not considered how large a proportion of the blackest ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... like a heavy load on shoulders which ought to be free; it is an impediment of speech when speech ought to have entire spontaneity, and freedom. This intense consciousness of self, although always revealing a certain amount of egoism, is often devoid of egotism; it is, in many cases, a sign of diffidence and essential modesty. It is the burden and limitation of those especially who have high aims and standards, but who distrust their own ability to do well the things they are eager to do. To be self-conscious is to waste a great deal of force which ought to go into work; ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... taste and you will enter, it should be yours for the undertaking. A little mathematical knowledge will strengthen your style and give it perspicuity. Arrangement is the material point in voyage-writing as well as in history. I feel great diffidence here. Sufficient matter I can easily furnish, and fear not to prevent anything unseamanlike from entering into the composition; but to round a period well and arrange sentences so as to place what is meant in the most perspicuous point of view is too much for me. Seamanship ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... not ride to Marjorie's home with the party, although she had been invited to dine with them that night. She could not bear to think of intruding. She managed to answer Mr. Raymond's courteous remarks, but her thoughts were not centered upon what he was saying. Without warning, her old-time diffidence settled down upon her like an enveloping cloak, and her one object was to slip away as quickly and ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... world's real, though unrecognized, need of a pure vein of poetry, we can hardly imagine him as permanently satisfied to defer his own contribution till after his death. Yet we may certainly believe that the need of money helped him to overcome much diffidence as to publication; and we may discern something dignified in his frank avowal of this when it is taken in connexion with his scrupulous abstinence from any attempt to win the suffrages of the multitude by means unworthy of his high vocation. He could never, indeed, have written poems ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yet it is with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time, even with the utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been impossible to make the facts public; but now the principal person concerned is beyond the reach of human law, and with due suppression the story may be told in such ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... against any object of consideration, that the (65) most penetrating understanding can suggest, weighs them with each other, and draws from them the most rational conclusions, he yet discovers such a diffidence in his own opinion, that he resigns himself implicitly to the judgment and direction of his friend; a modesty not very compatible with the disposition of the arrogant, who are commonly tenacious of their own opinion, particularly in what relates to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... to the crown. It would almost seems as if a doubt existed as to the heirship, from the expression "whose next of kin they SAY they are." This note is conjectural only, and is therefore offered with much diffidence. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... 361 would have been a turning-point in the war, and that, if Rome did not by a great effort assert herself and recover her prestige, the advance of Persia would have been marked and rapid. But the actual course of events was far different. Hesitation and diffidence characterize the movements of both parties to the contest, and the year is signalized by no important enterprise on the part of either monarch. Constantius reoccupied Edessa, and had (we are told) some thoughts of renewing the siege of Bezabde; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... hesitated Mrs. Taylor left the room. As the door opened they could hear Lancy's voice as he conversed with the family, and for the first time it brought a flush to Dexie's face. She shrank from the thought of meeting him, but this diffidence was owing more to Elsie's remarks than to any change in ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... explain, with some diffidence the stillness of the room sobering me—that I wished to see the king, when he who had advanced took me up sharply with, 'The king? the king? He is not here, man. He is hunting at St. Valery. Did they not tell you ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... All she did was right; all she said was admired. Early, very early, did she dismiss blushes from her cheek: she could not blush because she could not doubt; and silence, whatever was her subject, was as much a stranger to her as diffidence. ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... steps of his door were crowded with the patients who flocked to him for advice, and for whom he prescribed gratuitously—not without some reluctance, however, arising from distrust of his own abilities and an unwillingness to interfere with the practice of the regular profession. But the diffidence with which he regarded his own efforts was not shared by the people of the district. Their faith in his professional skill was unbounded, and perhaps the confidence which they felt in his power, contributed in some measure to the success that ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... was with great diffidence that I accepted the invitation of your President to respond to a toast to-night. I realized my incapacity to do justice to the occasion, while at the same time I recognized the high compliment conveyed. I felt somewhat as the man did respecting the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy; he said he didn't ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... parson's week," so as to include the wedding. He looked very fresh and youthful; but his manner, though still gentle and retiring, had lost all that shrinking diffidence, and had, now, a very suitable grave composure. Everybody was delighted to have him; and Ethel, more than any one, except Margaret. What floods of Cocksmoor histories were poured upon him; and what comparing of notes about his present school-children! He could not enter into the refinements of her ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... overhead glowed vividly against the blue. Around the bench the grass grew taller, as on a grave; and crisp lichens, gray and brown, overspread its surface. Man had neglected it so long that Nature, overcoming her diffidence towards his handiwork, had at length claimed it for ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... bright, beaming eyes, a slight but compact form, and brown curls that came to his shoulders. His London life had given him a confidence in himself, and in his manner there was a grace and poise flavored with a becoming diffidence. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... and fruit. Though I was much more at ease in society now, I was always terribly put out when asked for a toast or a sentiment. Like other girls, I did not dislike a little quiet flirtation; but I never could speak across a table, or take a leading part in conversation. This diffidence was probably owing to the secluded life I led in my early youth. At this time I gladly took part in any gaiety that was going on, and spent the day after a ball in idleness and gossiping with my friends; but these were rare occasions, for the balls were not numerous, and I never ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... her duties as hospital nurse at once. Untrammelled even by the knowledge of conventionalities, and with the directness and fearlessness of a brave child, she went from one to another, her diffidence quickly banished by her profound sympathy. The enlisted men on the piazzas received her chief attentions, nor was she long in discovering the Federal wounded, crowding the outbuildings ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention of Lady Bradeen had frustrated for a while the convergence of our heroine's thoughts; but with this impression of her old friend's combined impatience and diffidence they began again to whirl round her, and continued it till one of them appeared to dart at her, out of the dance, as if with a sharp peck. It came to her with a lively shock, with a positive sting, that Mr. Drake was—could it be possible? With ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... brides in voices more distinct and audible than if they had been uttered amid the gay crowds that usually throng a bridal; for though they were the irreclaimable words that bound them forever to the men whose power over their feelings they thus proclaimed to the world, the reserve of maiden diffidence was lost in one engrossing emotion of solemnity, created by the awful presence in which they stood. When the benediction was pronounced, the head of Cecilia dropped on the shoulder of her husband, where she wept violently, for ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... not always necessary to take a lady's first refusal as absolute. Diffidence or uncertainty as to her own feelings may sometimes influence a lady to reply in the negative, and after-consideration cause her to regret ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... generally either caused by spite or by a deficiency of respect The latter is never pardonable. It is in doubtful taste to warn people of their faults, to comment upon their lack of taste, to carry them disagreeable tidings, under the name of friendship. On the Continent, where diffidence is unknown, where a man, whoever he may be, has a right to speak to his fellow-man (if he does it civilly), where a woman finds other women much more polite to her than women are to each other in this country, there is no familiarity. It is almost an insult to touch the person; for instance, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... be," answered Julia: "my father hasn't been to sea for a good many years. My father," she added, with a diffidence indescribably mingled with a sense of distinction,—"my father 's in State's Prison. What kind of looking man ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... worthily the diadem there still hangs the phantasm of a shadowy crown. There need be nothing of repellent haughtiness, or, what is worse, of evident condescension; but, though they are perfectly gentle and good-natured, we risk our little sallies and sarcasms with timidity, or at least diffidence; feeling especially that a commonplace compliment would be an inexcusable profanation. Our sword may be ready and keen enough against others, but before them we lower its point, as the robber did to Queen Margaret in the lonely wood. We are conscious of treading on ground ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... and get their opinions at first hand, not so much because it is their right as because it is their duty. We have also proposed to open new avenues of employment to women—to make them less dependent and less burdensome—to lift them out of unwomanly self-distrust and disqualifying diffidence into womanly self-respect and self-knowledge. To teach them to make all work honorable, by each doing the share that falls to her, or that she may work out to herself agreeably to her own special aptitude, cheerfully and faithfully—not going ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... who she is. I won't give you away," Tom would beg. Once or twice, indeed, I had imagined I was in love with the sisters of Boston classmates whose dances I attended; to these parties Tom, not having overcome his diffidence in respect to what he called "social life," never could be induced ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a glance at her, and then another. She did not look merry indeed. Neeld knew his ignorance of feminine things, and made guesses with proper diffidence; but he certainly fancied she had been crying—or very near it—not so long ago. Yet the daughter of William Iver was sensible and not given to ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... the conversation for the time being; and the party trooped on in silence. But after a little the small mousy one's curiosity overcame her diffidence. "Land, it'd be queer to live in a place like this! Do you come down here ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... years ago I first gave THE ZINCALI to the world, it was, as I stated at the time, with considerable hesitation and diffidence: the composition of it and the collecting of Gypsy words had served as a kind of relaxation to me whilst engaged in the circulation of the Gospel in Spain. After the completion of the work, I had not the slightest idea that it possessed any ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... at him with a fond expression of reproach. "Does that surprise you, Pierre? You rough soldier, you little know, and I will not tell you, the way to a woman's heart; but for one blindfolded by so much diffidence to his own merits, you have found the way very easily! Was it for loving you that you blamed me? What if I should recall ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... what is called a furnished hotel in the Latin Quarter. There was a great deal of habit in his penuriousness; and his virtue, which was very remarkable among his associates, was principally founded upon diffidence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... while he reminded George of this and that, how they had gone ratting once together, how George had let him try a colt that he was breaking, Helen knew there were subtle questions in his brain, but if George suspected them, he gave no sign. He was at his ease, for with men he had neither diffidence nor surliness, and Helen remembered that she had hardly seen him except in the presence of Miriam or herself, two women who, in different ways, had ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... confirmation of our independence and sovereignity and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with diffidence; a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the Union, and ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... own exertions, and that those exertions would not, unfortunately, be backed by any great cleverness of his own. I do not know that anybody had told him that he was a fool; but he had come to understand, partly through his own modesty, and partly, no doubt, through the somewhat obtrusive diffidence of his mother, that he was less sharp than other lads. It is probably true that he had come to his sharpness later in life than is the case with many young men. He had not grown on the sunny side of the wall. Before that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Bruce of Sumburgh's schooner, the only link between the Fair Isle and the rest of the world; and that he held services and was doing "good." So much came glibly enough; but when pressed a little further, the catechist displayed embarrassment. A singular diffidence appeared upon his face: "They tell me," said he, in low tones, "that he's a lord." And a lord he was; a peer of the realm pacing that inhospitable beach with his Greek Testament, and his plaid about his shoulders, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mind, had he been as much distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would, beyond all doubt, have been without an equal. But there was a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence and want of force in his nature, which rendered it impossible that those evidences of ardor and animation which are proper to the more exalted character, should ever appear in him; nor did he at any time display one particle of that elevation which, could it but have been added to the advantages ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the request of your Warden, the honour of delivering an inaugural address on this occasion, it has appeared to me appropriate to choose, for such an audience, some literary subject. And I propose, with some diffidence, to offer a few observations on the reading of history, because in these latter days, when education has come in upon us like a flood, rising higher and spreading wider every year among our people, no part of literature is more sedulously studied than the field ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Bucklersbury—and here she would have been wrong. The Time has come when we throw the handkerchief at female Rohans, we Maurices and our like. I have not done so myself, it is true; but not from any rooted antipathy to any daughter of a hundred earls—nor yet from any particular diffidence on ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... diffidence was due to the fact that the men used to make audible remarks in reference to his 'lovely black eyes,' but as soon as the tint of these gradually merged from green to yellow and then buck to their normal tone, the first-mate grew bumptious and endeavoured to resume his old position of chief ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a little of the northern shyness, Dalrymple was not diffident. There is a great difference between shyness and diffidence. Diffidence distrusts itself; shyness distrusts the mere outward impression made on others. At this time Dalrymple had no object beyond enjoying the pleasure of talking with Maria Addolorata, and no hope beyond that of some day seeing her face without the veil. As for her voice, his ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... judgment, in one place, or at one time, when everywhere upon any, upon no occasion they dare to confront and contemn them? Who then will be the more trusted for swearing? What satisfaction will any man have from it? The rifeness of this practice, as it is the sign, so it will be the cause of a general diffidence ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... that led to their confusion; and in this way he grew expert in obtaining victories that, as he said, neither he nor his cause deserved. Accordingly he afterwards gave up this form of sophistry and only retained the habit of expressing himself in terms of modest diffidence, always saying: He conceived or imagined such a thing to be so, and never using the words ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... from those which formerly accompanied him into Turkey. Then in the prime of life, he joyfully bid adieu to a land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel amongst barbarians; now, mature in years, but dismayed at the spectacle and experience of injustice and persecution, it was with diffidence, as we learn from himself, that he went to implore from a free people an asylum for a sincere friend of that liberty that had been ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... "Mr. Leith formulates the anatomy of diffidence as Burton did of melancholy; and it might almost be said that he has done it with equal charm. The book surpasses in beauty and distinction of style any other prose work of the past few years. Its charm is akin to that of Mr. ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... which has so often been mooted in the press and the pulpit, as to the utility and propriety of novel reading. But while this question is one on which there are great differences of opinion, there are a few things which may be said on it without diffidence or the fear of successful contradiction. Of this kind is the remark that good juvenile books must have something positively good about them. They should be not merely amusing or entertaining and harmless, but instructive and stimulating ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... her was his unusual height, and the next a certain awkwardness and angularity. When he came to be formally presented, his diffidence and lack of ease were quite marked. Bel greeted him with a distant inclination of her head, De Forrest also vouchsafed merely one of his slightest bows, while Harcourt stood so far away that he was ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... seeking timely aid, or any aid at all. Hence arise a number of troubles, not infrequently serious ones, not to the wives alone, but to their husbands as well. There is hardly a physician who has no cause to complain of this frequently criminal diffidence on the part of women, and their objection to state their complaint freely. All this is easy to understand; irrational, however, is the posture of the men, and of several physicians among them, who will not admit the justice and necessity of the study of medicine, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... of Sama-no-Kami to meet with too much jealousy in one of the ladies to whom he might otherwise have given his heart; while he could feel no confidence in another owing to flirtations. It was my hard lot to encounter an instance of excessive diffidence. I once knew a girl whose person was altogether pleasing, and although I, too, had no intention, as Sama-no-Kami said, of forming an everlasting connection with her, I nevertheless took a great fancy to her. As our acquaintance was prolonged, our mutual affection grew warmer. ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... not wholly given to serious matters as had been those among whom she had hitherto passed her days. And he was one who could speak of his love with soft winning words, neither roughly nor yet with too much of shame-faced diffidence. And when he told her how he had sworn to himself after seeing her that once,—that once when all before him in life was enveloped in doubt and difficulty,—that he would come home and make her his wife, she thought that the manly constancy ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... me, loftily saying: 'One really doesn't expect to find this sort of thing in print nowadays!' And another class of reader is certain to get angry. Nevertheless, as one of my main objects in the present book is to discuss matters which 'people don't talk about,' I shall discuss this matter. But my diffidence in doing so is such that I must approach it deviously, describing it first by means of ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... he found her strolling upon the lawn. It was an ordered, lovely scene, steeped now in the tranquillity of evening. Above, the stars were losing diffidence. Below, and within arms' reach, Mildred Claridge was treading the same planet on which ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... she was born; she cannot learn how to stand and sit and move like a woman bred to refinement, any more than she can fashion her tongue to graceful speech. Mrs Yule's behaviour to Marian was marked with a singular diffidence; she looked and spoke affectionately, but not with a mother's freedom; one might have taken her for a trusted servant waiting upon her mistress. Whenever opportunity offered, she watched the girl in a curiously furtive way, that puzzled look on her face becoming ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... stammered, with the diffidence of a child explaining some lapse which, it was hoped, might not be regarded as a real fault. "I never dreamed of marriage—in the sense—that people mean—when they intend to live happily together. . . . Monsieur ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... guns to grand opera and you'd get at least a reasonable answer. Though you wouldn't guess the knowledge was there unless you did pump for it, for "Mac" was not of the type of those who overwork the first person pronoun, not because of foolish diffidence but merely because it rarely occurred to him as a subject of conversation. Seventeen years in the marine corps—you were sure he was "jollying" when he first said it—had taken "Mac" to most places where warships go, from Pekin and "the Islands" to Cape Town and Buenos ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... understand Madge's diffidence, and he knew that their family life would soon banish it. He welcomed this pale slip of a girl to their home circle because it gave him pleasure to pet and rally such a wraith into something like genuine existence. He also hoped that eventually she would become a source of amusement to him. ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... continues, people are talking about one of the maids of honor, respecting whom various slanderous reports are being circulated. These vague phrases have not allowed me to sleep. I have been deploring, ever since yesterday, that my diffidence and vacillation of purpose, notwithstanding a certain obstinacy of character I may possess, have left me unable to reply to these insinuations. In a word, M. de Wardes was setting off for Paris, and I did not delay his departure with explanations; for it seemed rather hard, I confess, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of some benefit to some afflicted persons who may feel some diffidence in trusting themselves in ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... with this diffidence is the repeated hope for aid from the Abderhalden. or some similar ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... examines this report (Essays, i. 360):—'To what then, it has been asked, could Johnson allude? Possibly to some anecdote or some conversation of which all trace is lost. One conjecture may be offered, though with diffidence. Gibbon tells us in his memoirs [Misc. Works, i. 56] that at Oxford he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this, the young man fell in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... with unwieldiness, at least his size Will favour find in every critic's eyes; And should his humour, and his mimic art, Bear due proportion to his outer part, As once 'twas said of Macklin in the Jew, 'This is the very Falstaff Shakspeare drew.' To you, with diffidence, he bids me say, Should you approve, you may command his stay, To lie and swagger here another day. If not, to better men he'll leave his sack, And go as ballast, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... succession of gifts reaped at length the harvest for which they had been sown. In his third letter of grateful acknowledgment for his young friend's kind remembrance of him, Mr. Gisburne, with some diffidence, for Tripton Rectory was neither lively nor remarkably commodious, suggested how great the pleasure would be were his friend to run down to him for a couple of days or so; he had nothing, in truth, to offer him but a bachelor's quarters and a hearty welcome; there was next to no attraction ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... all over at this delicate compliment, and observed, with becoming diffidence and great originality, that "beauty was only skin-deep at the best, and not by any manner of means to be compared with ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... fellow when you first hit the country—and she thought she was getting that same fine fellow when she came away out here to marry you. It ain't any of my business—but do you think you're giving her a square deal?" He waited a minute, and spoke the next sentence with a certain diffidence. "I'll gamble you ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... convention, of which Madison was a member, assembled in June. He had completely overcome his natural diffidence and, although deficient as an orator, exerted a powerful influence over his associates, contributing as much to the final triumph of the constitution as any one in the body. The instrument was adopted by a vote of eighty-nine to seventy-nine and the convention closed. The part which he had taken ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... sung; solicitation had failed with such of the girls as were known to be musically given. Yet an earnest prayer from the chairman succeeded at length in overcoming the diffidence of one. She was a pale, unhealthy thing, and wore an ugly-shaped hat with a gruesome green feather; she sang with her eyes down, and in a voice which did not lack a certain sweetness. The ballad was of springtime ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... were, particularly, the objects of the persecutions and proscriptions of the times.—It is not unlikely therefore, that, although they were inflexibly steady in refusing their positive assent to any thing against their principles, they might have contracted habits of reserve, and a cautious diffidence of asserting their opinions publicly.—These habits they probably brought with them to America, and have transmitted down to us.—Or, we may possibly account for this appearance, by the great affection ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... Scott gently. "But all the same, dear, you can spare a little thought for yourself now." He hesitated momentarily, then: "I think Eustace would like to see more of you," he said, speaking with a touch of diffidence. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... that second marriage is more a matter of business. "I'll give you a home, if you'll take care of my children." "It's a bargain," is the way most second matches are made. There is little of the poetry of first-love, and little of the coyness and shrinking diffidence which characterize the first attachment. Still these remarks apply almost equally to a second attachment, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... bowlders, and stood still. With diffidence she took out of his letter the paper with the printed slip attached, and gave it ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... already appeared before the public, similar in character to this little work, that it is with feelings of diffidence we bring our humble offering, especially when we consider the rich merit possessed by many of its predecessors. But our apology must be found in the fact that these publications are, from their size, and consequent expense, inaccessible to many ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... He is peculiarly fortunate, not only in having Mr. Allston for an adviser and friend, but in his companion in painting, Mr. Leslie, a young man from Philadelphia highly recommended by my uncle there, and whose extreme diffidence adds to the most promising talents the patient industry and desire of improvement which are necessary to bring them to perfection. They have been drawing each other's pictures. Mr. Leslie is in the Spanish costume and Mr. Morse in Highland ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Boston houses. He was not an unsocial man, but he was most distinctly not a society man. He loved chiefly the companionship of books, and of men who loved books; but of women generally he had an amusing diffidence; he revered them and honored them, but he would rather not have had them about. This is over-saying it, of course, but the truth is in what I say. There was never a more devoted husband, and he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... friends among the youths and lads of Thrawl Street and its environment, nor did he seek them. Those who hung about him were soon repelled by his secretive manner and a diffidence which was little more than natural shyness. If he fell now and then into the speech of the alleys, constant association was responsible for the lapse. Sometimes, it is true, an acquaintance would defy the snub and thrust himself stubbornly ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... described, in the outer boundary of Nature, which neither telescope nor geometry can well reach, that speculation has laid its venue, and commenced its aerial castles. LAPLACE was the first to suggest the nebular hypothesis, which he did with great diffidence, not as a theory proved, or hardly likely, but as a mathematical possibility or illustration. His range of creation, moreover, was not so vast as that of our author, which assumes to compass the entire universe, but was limited to the evolution of the solar system. ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... so generally in the very able speech of the gentleman from Virginia near me,[1] that it is not without diffidence and regret that I venture to differ with him on any point. His opinions, Sir, are redolent of the doctrines of a very distinguished school, for which I have the highest regard, of whose doctrines ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the chaos—with the world and all its civilization and its manners and its men and its affairs as though they had never been, as though the two had lived for a flashing minute in some old dream—the strain of years that makes for ceremony and diffidence and convention and custom suddenly stopped, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... He at this time possessed an extensive stock of legal information, having been an indefatigable reader, and spent the two last years of his preliminary studies in the office of a special pleader. At his outset he made no progress, his powers being palsied by an oppressive diffidence. He therefore devoted his talents entirely to being a draftsman in Chancery. His employment was laborious, and not lucrative, while it materially injured his health. In a fit of despondency he resolved to retire into ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part take him to be a tide-waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity, he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness, he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... his feet. No diffidence cloyed his manner now. He was on familiar ground at last, for the first time since fighting Arabs in Algeria. He was supremely happy too, and as mad as a Gaul can be. "L'impertinent!" he ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Assembly until they should comply. Chatham attributed this opposition of the colonists to the mutiny act to "their jealousy of being somehow or other taxed internally by the Parliament; the act," said he, "asserting the right of Parliament, has certainly spread a most unfortunate jealousy and diffidence of government here throughout America, and makes them jealous of the least distinction between this country and that, lest the same principle may be extended to taxing them." [Footnote: Chatham's Correspondence, vol. iii., ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... for the cause that had operated to produce this change in the structure of the lower parts of the stems of these trees, Mr. Bass feels the utmost diffidence. He found that all his conjectures which were best supported by existing facts, led him to place them among petrifications; although no strict analogy could be seen between them and the subjects usually met with ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Roman affairs, which is thus the next portion of my task, with no little diffidence. It is hard to rise to a point of view sufficiently elevated and clear, where the extent of dominion is so great geographically, and the reasons of policy are obscured by the dimness and clouds of so many centuries. Living in a social state the origin of which is in the events now to be ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... big place, and no sufficient treatment under the head of this chapter is possible except to one who has had very great experience and extended research. Nevertheless I may, with all due diffidence and modesty, tell the little I know on the subject. My opportunities of investigation have been few, and restricted to a limited area—so restricted and so limited that I cannot tell whether or not the observations ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... upon her duties as hospital nurse at once. Untrammelled even by the knowledge of conventionalities, and with the directness and fearlessness of a brave child, she went from one to another, her diffidence quickly banished by her profound sympathy. The enlisted men on the piazzas received her chief attentions, nor was she long in discovering the Federal wounded, crowding the outbuildings ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... of his deep and varied investigations—he replied, "More men become writers from ignorance, than from knowledge, not knowing that they have been anticipated by others. Let us decide with caution, and write late." Thus the vastness and variety of his acquirements, and the diffidence of his own mental maturity alike prevented him from illuminating mankind, till death called him to graduate in a sphere more favourable to the range of his soaring and comprehensive mind.—He died on a visit to Oxford, in November, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... I feel a natural diffidence and some little constraint in treating such a subject before a specially Hebrew gathering. But the Hebrews of whom I have to speak are not yourselves, but your ancestors, and they are ancestors with a history so remarkable and a spirit so potent that, though ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... men, I believe, who have, or think they have, a very small share of vanity. Such may speak of their literary fame in a decorous style of diffidence. But I confess, that I am so formed by nature and by habit, that to restrain the effusion of delight, on having obtained such fame, to me would be truly painful. Why then should I suppress it? Why 'out of the abundance of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the senses. I have seen an expression which has approached it, in some of our priests, but far below it in power and beauty. My first impulse was to address him, but his pallid and thoughtful countenance, together with that eye, restrained me, and I know not how I should have overcome this strange diffidence, had not the difficulty been removed by the intervention of a third party. This was no other than one of those travelling Jews, who infest all cities, towns and regions, and dwell among all people, yet mix with none. He was bent almost double by the weight ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... shame and disappointment in the end. And there is, on the other hand, intolerable remissness and slackness in many, in pressing even the weightiest petitions of salvation, mortification, &c. which certainly ariseth from the diffidence and unbelief of the heart, and the want of that rooted persuasion, both of the incomparable necessity and worth of the things themselves, and of his willingness and engagement ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... manage?" Bertram inquired with some diffidence. "It raises a point you wouldn't let me talk about at Peshawur, but I've often felt guilty because I didn't insist. Travelling about as you have ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... should approach this question, if I were in the best possible condition to speak and to argue it, with very grave diffidence, and certainly with the utmost anxiety; for no one can think of it as long and as carefully as I have thought of it without seeing that we are at the beginning, perhaps, of a struggle that may last as long in this country as a similar struggle ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... tragedy, and still he stood trembling weakly on the verge. Mrs. Norman began to grow thin. She lost her bright air of defiance, and showed herself vulnerable by the hand of time. And nothing, positively nothing, stood between them, except Wilkinson's morbid diffidence. So absurdly manifest was their case that somebody (the Troubadour man, in fact) interposed discreetly. In the most delicate manner possible, he gave Wilkinson to understand that he would not necessarily make himself obnoxious ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... he had not realized that there was need to constitute the nations before laying down rules for the League; he trusted that bringing them together with mutual pledges would further most efficiently the cause of peace among the peoples. On the other hand, there was diffidence, shared by both, between Wilson and Lloyd George, and there was little likelihood of the British Prime Minister's move checking the ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... truth in the story of the princess who slept the years away until the prince came along and touched her lips with his. Don't you think lots of people are hampered by their environment? All they need is escape." He suggested this with a shy diffidence. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... awaited the effect of Madge's invitation, or rather command, adding nothing to it. The boy's colour showed his diffidence, under the scrutiny of so many coldly inquiring eyes; but after a moment he rose, and I, with greater quickness, seized his bag by the handle and started across the street with it. He called out a surprised and grateful "Thank you," and followed me. I was speedily glad I had not undertaken to ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... meant a lot of work and a lot of thought and a lot of talking and interference, but Joanna shrank from none of these things. She was healthy and vigorous and intelligent, and was, moreover, quite unhampered by any diffidence about teaching their work to people who had been busy at it before ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... only the earth was visible—whereas talking to Ulick was like the twilight through which the stars were shining. Dreams were to him the true realities; externals he accepted as other people accepted dreams—with diffidence. Evelyn laughed, much amused by herself and Ulick, and she laughed as she thought of his fixed and averted look as he related the tales of bards and warriors. Every now and then his dark eyes would light up with ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... before Jane could find the opportunity to make inquiries concerning the whereabouts of Graydon Bansemer. Her thoughts had been of nothing else; her eagerness had been tempered by the diffidence of the over-zealous. She and pretty Ethel Harbin had made life endurable for the gay young officers who came over on the ship; the pretty wives of certain captains and lieutenants had small scope for their blandishments at ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Then she remembered that she had asked Mrs. Tams to bring up some Revalenta Arabica food for Mrs. Maldon as soon as it should be ready. And she sedately opened the door. Mrs. Tams, with her usual serf-like diffidence, remained invisible, except for the hand holding forth the cup. But her soft voice, charged with sensational news, ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... the thought of defeat in his chosen profession, turned to commercial life and then to the theater. At his first stage appearance he trembled with diffidence and all but fled in fright. He persevered, for he could do nothing else. He arose step by step, and honors, wealth and fame were his. Love came to him: he wedded the woman of his choice. And after his death she survived for forty-three years. She lived one hundred years, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... upon being kindly treated by his gentle partner, he recovers, in the galop finale, feeling truly grateful to the guardian spirit that has conducted him through the purgatory. Ladies, be gentle with youthful bashfulness—it often arises from pure feelings, modest diffidence, or unselfishness;—such, unlike many proficient dancers, carry their brains in their hats, and not in their boots:—weigh your "fantastic-toes" against them, and see which ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... interrupted her to say. "Now you know that much, and I'll tell you just what I know about it. It was Carl shot Crofty, all right. I rode over with him to the Lazy A; I was on my way to town and we went that far together. I rode that way to tell you good-by." He looked at Jean with a certain diffidence. "I kinda wanted to see you before I went clear outa the country, but ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... of Tragedy, and describe [the [3]] most dreadful of all human Conditions, the Case of Bankruptcy; how Plenty, Credit, Chearfulness, full Hopes, and easy Possessions, are in an Instant turned into Penury, faint Aspects, Diffidence, Sorrow, and Misery; how the Man, who with an open Hand the Day before could administer to the Extremities of others, is shunned today by the Friend of his Bosom. It would be useful to shew how just this is on the Negligent, how lamentable on the Industrious. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... chair and silently waits for the scraps from her plate. The cat Melanio, however, is not in the habit of visiting Signor Odoardo's study, and shows a certain surprise at finding himself there. Signor Odoardo, for his part, receives his new guest with some diffidence; but Doretta, intervening in Melanio's favor, undertakes to answer for ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... intellectual standing; and he certainly forgave Jim his persistency in compelling his company this morning. He forgot the patches in his clothes among such gentlemen as Clarke and Charlie, and for the first time in his life felt himself superior to his natural diffidence and reserve. Who could help being at his ease where Charlie was? He kept up a running fire of chaff at his old schoolfellow, for which occasionally the others came in; and if it be true that laughter is a good digestive, Jim Halliday's breakfast ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon after breakfast, he ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... liked his diffidence, which, while very evident, was wholly genuine, and the faint color in his face gave him ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... visitor had become aware of arousing a queer reaction in Allegheny Briskow. He had overcome her diffidence early enough; he had unsealed her lips; he had obtained an insight into her character; but once that was done, the girl retired within herself again and he could get nothing more out of her. He would have believed that she actually ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... career inclines me to think that it is better to risk taking too much than to content one's self with too little. Such is my opinion, derived from much experience; but I put it before my readers with the utmost diffidence and with profound modesty, knowing that it may possibly jar with their feelings of confidence in their own ability to know and judge as to what is best and fittest in reference to their own affairs. But, to return from this digression, for which I ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... highest circles and pentacles. Nancy, Miss Broughton's heroine, tells her middle-aged wooer, among other things, that she accepts him, because "I did think it would be nice for the boys; but I like you myself, besides." After this ardent confession, he "kissed her with a sort of diffidence." Many men would have preferred to go out ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... these last words with all diffidence and humility, and trusting that the Lord will pardon any mistake which I may make about His Divine Words. I only say them because wiser men than I have often taken the same view already. Of course there is more, far more, in this wonderful ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter upon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become to me to criticise you, gentlemen—who are nearly all my elders—and my superiors, in this thing—if I should here and there seem to do it, I trust it will in most ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... for the great majority of mankind at any rate. And here, I confess, I part company with the friends of physical science, with whom up to this point I have been agreeing. In differing from them, however, I wish to proceed with the utmost caution and diffidence. The smallness of my own acquaintance with the disciplines of natural science is ever before my mind, and I am fearful of doing these disciplines an injustice. The ability and pugnacity of the partisans ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... own means in so expensive a regiment, made no inquiries, leaving the matter to take its own course. But, although two months had passed away, and his attentions to me were unremitting, Colonel Dempster had made no proposal, which I ascribed to his awe of me, and his diffidence as to his success. This rather pleased me than otherwise; but my own feelings now made me wish for the affair to be decided, and I gave him every opportunity that modesty and discretion would permit. I saw little of him during the mornings, as he went out with his ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... of our Society; "that all its members stand upon a level, we "venture to assume this station & to approach "you with that freedom which diminishes "our diffidence without lessening ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse
... great diffidence the following examination of the words Dorus and the Aeolian Minyae, which I shall attempt to derive from words denoting sun ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... room. She wore a dress of light hue, and had some flowers in her girdle. The past year had added a trifle to her stature; it could not add to her natural grace, but her manner of entering showed that diffidence had been overcome by habit. There was very little now to distinguish her from the young lady who ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... some degree this want, as it affects the person and reign of one of the most illustrious of female and of European sovereigns, is the intention of the work now offered with much diffidence to the public. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... needlework of peacocks that generations of patient fingers must have toiled at. Pulling these apart the maid led her into an inner hall fifty or sixty feet long, the first sight of which banished all diffidence about her shoes; for never had she seen such medley of East and West, such toning down of Oriental mysticism with the sheer utility of European importations; and that ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... of Malacca. Xavier's advice to the governor of Malacca. They follow his counsel. They prepare to engage the enemy. He exhorts the soldiers and captains to do their duty. The fleet sets out, and what happened at that time. He upbraids the governor with his diffidence. He foretels what is suddenly accomplished. The Portuguese fleet goes in search of the enemy. Troubles in Malacca concerning their fleet. A new cause of consternation. The true condition of the fleet. The soldiers are encouraged by their ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... themselves and get their opinions at first hand, not so much because it is their right as because it is their duty. We have also proposed to open new avenues of employment to women—to make them less dependent and less burdensome—to lift them out of unwomanly self-distrust and disqualifying diffidence into womanly self-respect and self-knowledge. To teach them to make all work honorable, by each doing the share that falls to her, or that she may work out to herself agreeably to her own special aptitude, cheerfully and faithfully—not going down to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... wish his wife to be; but the higher were her attractions, the greater her claims to consideration, the less had he imagined that he might possible become the possessor of them. Such had been his instinct rather than his thoughts, so humble and so diffident. Now his diffidence was to be rewarded by his seeing this woman, whose beauty was to his eyes perfect, whose wealth was such as to have deterred him from thinking of her, whose widowhood would have silenced him had he not been so deterred, by his seeing her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by Pythagoras," said Mrs. Bernard, "was calculated to teach his pupils those amiable virtues—diffidence, humility, and forbearance. These charms give a brilliant lustre to every other acquirement; indeed, they are so necessary, that knowledge without them, far from improving a character, is apt to produce conceit and arrogance, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... different halting-places. All who saw the prisoner on the road, and were made acquainted with the particulars of her situation, earnestly exhorted, and even implored her to become a proselyte to their faith; she heard them with quiet diffidence, and replied modestly to all the arguments directed to her, that she would rather sacrifice her life than change her religion. So much courageous perseverance was the admiration of all who conversed with her, and her situation ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... for some time at a distance). I am exhausted—all attempts are vain To hold this youth. He still eludes my grasp. [Remains silent a few moments. But stay! Perchance 'tis man's unbounded pride, That thus to add a zest to my delight. Assumes a mask of timid diffidence. 'Tis so. [She approaches the PRINCE again, and looks at him doubtingly. Explain yourself, prince, I entreat you. For here I stand before a magic casket, Which all my ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Englishmen; not ideal polities, but the British Constitution; not Political Economy, but the actual course of our trade. Through this great forest of fact, this tangle of old and new, these secular oaks, sturdy shrubs, beautiful parasitic creepers, we move with a prudent diffidence, following the old tracks, endeavouring to keep them open, but hesitating to cut new routes till we are clear as to the goal for which we are asked to sacrifice our finest timber. Fundamental changes we regard as exceptional ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... cooled now and he saw clearly that London and theatrical enterprises therein would not be suited to his genius. In the Five Towns he was on his own ground; he was a figure; he was sure of himself. In London he would be a provincial, with the diffidence and the uncertainty of a provincial. Nevertheless, London seemed to be summoning him from afar off, and he dreamt agreeably of London as one ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... and he rich enough to play cricket all the summer, and do nothing for the rest of the year, I had fatuously counted on his mercy, his sympathy, his help! Yes, I had relied on him in my heart, for all my outward diffidence and humility; and I was rightly served. There was as little of mercy as of sympathy in that curling nostril, that rigid jaw, that cold blue eye which never glanced my way. I caught up my hat. I blundered to my feet. I would ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... any of the driving strain passing through the springs, a strong arm is fixed on the differential wheel and attached to the rim as shown in Fig. 2, so that the springs have really no work to do beyond carrying the weight of the engine. Messrs. McLaren naturally felt a certain amount of diffidence in placing their invention before the public until they had thoroughly tested it in practical work. This, we are informed, they have done, with the most satisfactory results, during the last five or six months; and they have a set of springs which ran during that time ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... the House of Representatives,—I thank you with a heart filled with gratitude for the distinguished honor conferred on me by an election as your Speaker. I will assume the powers and duties of this high office with, I trust, a due share of diffidence and distrust of my own ability to meet them acceptably to you and the country. I believe that you, as a body and individually, will give me hearty support in the discharge of all my duties. I invoke your and the country's charitable judgment upon all my official ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... jar and the modest Vicksburger prayed. His words were neither impromptu nor printed, but, as every one quickly perceived and Ramsey had known beforehand, were memorized and were fresh from the pen of the actor. Diffidence warped the first phrase or two, but soon each word came clear, warm from the heart, and reaching all hearts, however borne back by the rapturous yells with which the exhorter broke ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... 7th of July, as I was about to depart, my landlord, with a great deal of diffidence, begged me to give him a lock of my hair. He had been told, he said, that white men's hair made a saphic (talisman) that would give the possessor all the knowledge of the white man. I had never before heard of so simple a mode ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... merely retaining the position of the island from him. As might be expected, he exhibited the utmost interest in their plans; promptly demanded to be made useful in the carrying out of their operations, and—also as might be expected—betrayed no diffidence about making the suggestion that he should be permitted to share in such good fortune as might ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of "Hernani" was a performance calculated to add to it considerably. He was a very accomplished and charming person; good and amiable, clever, cultivated, and full of fine literary and artistic taste. He was singularly modest and shy, with a gentle diffidence of manner and sweet, melancholy expression in his handsome face that did no justice to a keen perception of humor and relish of fun, which nobody who did not know him intimately would have suspected ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... to her sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... of these latter animals causes mongrels, so mankind have their mongrels too, divided and subdivided into endless sorts. We have daily proofs of it here, as I told you before. In the same animal is not seldom remarked the Greek perfidiousness, the Italian diffidence, the Spanish arrogance, the French loquacity; and, all of a sudden, he is seized with a fit of English thoughtfulness, bordering a little upon dulness, which many of us have inherited from the stupidity of our Saxon progenitors. But the family ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... will it take to whip forty-nine Yankees?" America has been likened to a self-made man, hugging her conditions because she has made them, and considering them divine because they have grown up with the country. Another observer might quite as easily come to the conclusion that diffidence and self-distrust are the true American characteristics. Certainly Americans often show a saving consciousness of their faults, and lash themselves with biting satire. There are even Americans whose very attitude is an apology—wholly unnecessary—for the Great Republic, and who ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... six more lines which I have forgotten, but I suppose they gave the reason for this absurd diffidence. ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... to speak with the light persuasiveness of a woman of the world—wishing to overcome a man's diffidence or obstinacy, but while she said the words she felt a sudden earnestness rush over her. It went into the voice, and surely smote upon him like a gust of the hot wind that sometimes blows out of ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... very day been, as it were, the precursor of the restoration, by publishing his admirable manifesto, entitled "Bonaparte and the Bourbons." He was invited to join the deputation; but nothing could overcome his diffidence and induce him to speak. On arriving at the hotel in the Rue St. Florentin the deputation was introduced to Count Nesselrode, to whom M. Sosthenes de la Rochefoucauld briefly explained its object; he spoke of the wishes of the meeting and of the manifest desire of Paris and of France. He represented ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... westward to Masiko, is probably placed too far eastward on the map. It was put down when I believed Matiamvo and Cazembe to be farther east than I have since seen reason to believe them. All, being derived from native testimony, is offered to the reader with diffidence, as needing verification by actual explorers. The people of that part, named Kanyika and Kanyoka, living on its banks, are represented as both numerous and friendly, but Matiamvo will on no account permit any white person to visit them, as his principal supplies of ivory are ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... accordingly in my coach and with my grand livery, by which he made it appear that he reposed his confidence entirely in the people, whom there is a necessity of managing with a world of precaution because of their natural diffidence and instability. When we came to the House we were saluted upon the stairs with "God bless the Coadjutor!" but, except those posted there on purpose, not a soul cried, "God bless the Prince de Conti!" from which I concluded that the bulk of the people ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... been afloat, which are anything but true, and it has been urged upon me again and again to set down in plain terms the true history of events which have set people's tongues wagging. I must confess that, in spite of the pleasure I have in recalling the memories of past years, it is with great diffidence that I at last commence my work. Not because I have any difficulty in remembering what took place. My memory, thank God, is as good as ever, and the principal scenes in my history are as clear to me as if they happened yesterday. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... failed," he said; "but something must be ascribed to my own awkward diffidence; for there is so much meanness in tampering with a servant, that I had not the heart to push my questions, even while ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... divisions, no imposture of demagogues, no caprice of despots. On the contrary, many and great advantages in places which at the first survey do not appear to border on it. At present, the best of the English juridical institutions, that of justices of the peace, is viewed with diffidence and distrust. Elected as they would be, and increased in number, the whole judicature, civil and criminal, might be confided to them, and their labours be not only not aggravated but diminished. Suppose them in four divisions to meet at four places in every ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... The coincidence of circumstances which led to this auspicious crisis, the confidence reposed in me by my fellow-citizens, and the assistance I may expect from counsels which will be dictated by an enlarged and liberal policy seem to presage a more prosperous issue to my Administration than a diffidence of my abilities had taught me to anticipate. I now feel myself inexpressibly happy in a belief that Heaven, which has done so much for our infant nation, will not withdraw its providential influence before our political felicity shall have been completed, and in a conviction that the Senate ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or four quick successive glances. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said to my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the honour to mention the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... was the inheritor of the spirit which leavened the old Whig tradition. In Lord John the sentiments of Fox took on a more deliberate air. He was a more intellectual man than his lavish, emotional, imposing forbear; and if it is remembered that he had, in addition, the diffidence of a sensitive man, these facts go far to explain an apparent contradiction in his character which puzzled contemporaries. To the observer at a distance there seemed to be two John Russells: the man who appeared ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... impediments which have been in the affections, the principle whereof hath been despair or diffidence, and the strong apprehension of the difficulty, obscurity, and infiniteness which belongeth to the invention of knowledge, and that men have not known their own strength, and that the supposed difficulties ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... music I must speak with the diffidence becoming to the ignorant; but it seems to me to consist of two elements and to contain an inspirational art as direct and as simple as that of poetry, and a science so difficult that its fullest mastery is of very recent achievement. In melodic invention it is so far from progressive ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... latter is never pardonable. It is in doubtful taste to warn people of their faults, to comment upon their lack of taste, to carry them disagreeable tidings, under the name of friendship. On the Continent, where diffidence is unknown, where a man, whoever he may be, has a right to speak to his fellow-man (if he does it civilly), where a woman finds other women much more polite to her than women are to each other in this country, there is no familiarity. It is almost an insult to touch the person; for instance, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... with just a little diffidence. Perhaps if he was not remembered personally he might have the good luck to be unknown ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... passion-it becomes the metaphysician to reason-but the poet to protest. Yet Wordsworth and Coleridge are men in years; the one imbued in contemplation from his childhood; the other a giant in intellect and learning. The diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute their authority would be overwhelming did I not feel, from the bottom of my heart, that learning has little to do with the imagination-intellect with the passions-or age ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... for us, and here it is! It's hand-made and fine linen, brought all the way from New York down to the city in a wagon before the railroad run. It's all the present we have got for little Tucker, but we thought maybe—" And Miss Amanda paused with a shy diffidence in offering her gift. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... ennobles public life; and it saves the nation and the sovereign who possess such a true patriot. Consistency and courage, independence and dignity, are high- sounding words; but openness of mind, teachableness, diffidence, and humility always go with true nobility as well as with ultimate success and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... have seen neither the original vase or Prince Napoleon's catalogue, I feel some diffidence in throwing my half-ounce of doubt on this pound—good, thumping weight—of fact. However, I have seen the reproduction of the drawing as given by Mr. Fleming in his book, "Violins, Old and New," and, since he makes such a feature of this Grecian Ravanastron, I ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... keep but one purse: a severance of interest bespeaking diffidence, mistrust, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... beard; and had an air of a simple rustic farmer, that was, in my eyes, very reassuring. He was, indeed, a very honest man and pious Mormon; with no liking for his errand, though neither he nor any one in Utah dared to disobey; and it was with every mark of diffidence that he had had himself announced as Mr. Aspinwall, and entered the room where our unhappy family was gathered. My mother and me, he awkwardly enough dismissed; and as soon as he was alone with my father laid before him a blank signature of President Young's, and offered him a choice of services: ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the corridor, she saw him at once. She knew him at once. Yet he was so strange. He stood with the curious self-effacing diffidence which so frightened her in well-bred young men whom she knew. He stood as if he wished to be unseen. He was very well-dressed. She would not admit to herself the chill like a sunshine of frost that ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... have voted for impeachment both on the Rohilla charge, and on the Benares charge. Such a man might have thought that the offences of Hastings had been atoned for by great services, and might, on that ground, have voted against the impeachment, on both charges. With great diffidence, we give it as our opinion that the most correct course would, on the whole, have been to impeach on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on the Benares charge. Had the Benares charge appeared to us ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... equally singular and amiable. He is endeared to his friends not less by his foibles than his virtues; he insures their esteem by the one, and does not wound their self-love by the other. He gains ground in the opinion of others, by making no advances in his own. We easily admire genius where the diffidence of the possessor makes our acknowledgment of merit seem like a sort of patronage, or act of condescension, as we willingly extend our good offices where they are not exacted as obligations, or repaid with sullen indifference.—The style of the Essays of Elia is liable to the charge ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... He had lost his diffidence in his anger. "I know all about that. What does he want here ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and difficult—the opium trade with China. This is a subject imperatively demanding the best consideration of the Government. A careful examination of the subject, in all its bearings, induces us, with due diffidence, to express an opinion that the Government sale of opium in India should cease. We cannot, of course, prevent the poppy's being grown in India—nor, on the other hand, should a great source of revenue be easily parted with. Let their opium be produced and sold as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... was charming to see her again as she had been in the happiest moments of the past, and to feel that, Hicks being out of her world, her trust of everybody in it was perfect once more. She treated that interval of coldness and diffidence as all women know how to treat a thing which they wish not to have been; and Staniford, a man on whom no pleasing art of her sex was ever lost, admired and gratefully accepted the effect of this. He fell luxuriously into the old ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... filled, too, as it was with the image of Herbert Lyddiard, his attentions were intolerable. The open encouragement he now received from the father, however, emboldened him to persevere, and he professed to look upon her marked disapproval as nothing but maidenly diffidence, and proceeded to address her as though a positive ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... subjects will claim your attention during the present session, of which I shall endeavor to give, in aid of your deliberations, a just idea in this communication. I undertake this duty with diffidence, from the vast extent of the interests on which I have to treat and of their great importance to every portion of our Union. I enter on it with zeal from a thorough conviction that there never was a period since the establishment ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... of this bill and the kindred bills and amendments pending in the two Houses with unaffected diffidence. No problem is submitted to us of equal importance and difficulty. Our action will affect the value of all the property of all the people of the United States, and the wages of labor of every kind, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... said Daisy. "If she—if she still likes Shirley herself, there may be an unpleasant scene, and you will see how difficult it is for either of us to tell her. But you, who have done so many kindnesses for us, could convey the information to her without the diffidence we should feel. Will you, ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... Teezle was next introduced. She had again and again declared she was not afraid of a lawyer, and on this occasion her words proved true. Without the slightest diffidence, but with a boldness rather which encouraged the other witnesses, and with a toss of the head that Lawyer Faddle did not like, she said, "she had been out in the woods pasture picking blackberries, and saw Mr. Sculpin pass that way from the direction of Mr. Bogle's ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... is, to my mind, better than it is said to be. In Holdich's "India" it is unfavourably compared with that in Bombay, but do you know, I almost prefer the classic style of Calcutta to the scientific rococco Bombay architecture, but I offer this opinion with the greatest diffidence, for I know the author of "India" is an artist—still—"I know what I like," as the burglar said when ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... could have heard Abraham or Jonathan speak at some service. I am told their addresses correspond with their dispositions. The former is warm, and vigorous, the latter more calm and affectionate in tone. Matthew has yet to overcome his diffidence. ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... was—a little; but you will soon overcome all that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... time in the society of the gay and fashionable of the day, he had not neglected the pursuits to which his family's wish, as well as his own tastes, had devoted him. But it was with considerable hesitation, and with a feeling of anxious diffidence, that he consented to undertake the charge of Lady Aylesbury's case; for certain feelings were at work in his heart which made him fearful of the responsibility, and anxious ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... wondering," he continued, with some diffidence, "whether you'd care for a bit of work in my office, just to carry you along till things looked up. Blanche, she was set upon it that I should ask you anyway. Of course, you being a college young gentleman might not care about it, but there's times when any sort of a ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a conscious-modest air, "MY instrument is the 'cello." That was quite enough self-assertion for him, . . and if any one ever urged him to display his talent, he would elude the request with such charming grace and diffidence, that many people imagined he must really be a great musical genius who only lacked the necessary insolence and aplomb to make that ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... appropriating by their presence. And then the red faces made their way through the black biting frost to their own homes, feeling themselves free for the rest of the day to eat, drink, and be merry, and using that Christian freedom without diffidence. ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
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