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More "Timorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... father's gun, his good old gun, now!" would Hector say, as he eyed the timorous flocks as they rose and fell upon the lake; "but these foolish birds are so shy, that they are away before an ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... was so timorous that she would grow pale whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more yellow and drier than a ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... said to him, in a low voice, "I would not willingly seem either suspicious or timorous, and I hope I am neither. But I think I have reason for some unquiet. I have noticed something that seems curious to me in the composition of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... length}, I am forced to own {my passion}; and with timorous prayers, to entreat thy aid. Thou alone canst save, thou destroy, one who loves thee. Choose which thou wilt do. She is not thy enemy who begs this; but one who, though most nearly connected with thee, desires to be still more closely connected, and to be united to thee in a nearer tie. Let aged ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... winter was passed, and meanwhile the work of negotiation went prosperously on. The minds of the Indians had been already prepared. In La Salle they saw their champion against the Iroquois, the standing terror of all this region. They gathered around his stronghold like the timorous peasantry of the middle ages around the rock-built castle of their feudal lord. From the wooden ramparts of St. Louis,—for so he named his fort,— high and inaccessible as an eagle's nest, a strange scene lay before his eye. The broad flat valley of the Illinois was spread beneath ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... 'old man,' as he is called, timorous of every unwonted sound that enters his large, erected ears, has been chased far from every busy seat ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... in rational measure, should be followed by all education, for courage is essential to nobility of character. I emphasize that such training should be extended to both male and female, for we cannot expect to have a timorous mother efficiently educate her boy to be brave, to say nothing of the fact that her own happiness and ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... one, but a pacific laissez-faire for the purposes of trade. France envisages the complete ruin of German industry and commerce, and believes that Foch is the man to do it. At this the Italians smile quietly and counsel the timorous Germans not to despair. Rome chooses to hold to the thesis that a prosperous Italy depends on a prosperous Germany, and no outsider is qualified to dispute such a point of view. Somehow Italy manages to suggest a similar thought ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... way in which he, young as he was, could possibly help her, was to withdraw her from the dangerous scene and make her his wife; and on that step he had been for some days resolving. The emotion she had shown, the timorous joy, the sweet confidence in his love and honor, had given a rapturous feeling of happiness to him quite new. He had intended benevolently and kindly; he had met with all the blessings ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... in heroic measures, has been quietly trying to persuade the "Dictator"—that is, the would-be "Dictator"—to allow him to burn up the wrecked houses wholesale without the tedious bother of pulling them down and handling the debris. The timorous committees would not countenance such an idea. Nothing but piecemeal tearing down of the wrecked houses tossed together by the mighty force of the water and destruction by never-dying bonfires would satisfy them. Yet all of ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... of the most civilising institutions going; and Dick, after two cups of Templeton tea, and several cubic inches of Templeton bread- and-butter, felt amiably inclined towards his left-hand neighbour, a little timorous-looking boy, who blushed when anybody looked at him, and nearly fainted when he heard his own voice answering Mrs Partlett's enquiry whether ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... said, having got into the convent of Montrieux, the prior, a pious but timorous man, told his monks that flight was the only course which they could take: Gherardo answered with courage, "Go whither you please! As for myself I will remain in the situation in which Heaven has placed me." The prior fled to his own country, where ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... the bundle of papers which I had not read, I tied up the other, and, taking it under my arm, I went downstairs; and, after asking a question or two of the people of the house, I sallied forth into the street with a determined look, though at heart I felt somewhat timorous at the idea of venturing out alone into the mazes of the mighty city, of which I had heard much, but of which, of my own ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... glaring sun (as if bespoken on purpose by the mayor and corporation), with the thermometer at 90 degrees in the shade. The first sight which met the eye after sunrise, was the precipitate escape, from a city visited with the plague of gunpowder, of respectable or timorous people in coaches, carriages, waggons, and every variety of vehicle. "My kingdom for a horse!" was the general cry of all those who could not stand fire. In the mean while, the whole atmosphere was filled ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... effected, than an astronomer passing that way casually remarked to a friend that he had just sighted a comet. Supposing itself menaced, the timorous member again sprang away, coming down plump before the horny nose of a sparrow. Here its ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... well-disciplined militia of twenty thousand: and though the act of settlement had so far been infringed, that Catholics were permitted to live in corporate towns, they were guarded with so careful an eye, that the most timorous Protestant never apprehended ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... cause with the middle classes, they believed themselves certain of victory. The ground was marvellously well prepared. This ancient royalist town, with its population of peaceful householders and timorous tradespeople, was destined to range itself, sooner or later, on the side of law and order. The clergy, by their tactics, hastened the conversion. After gaining the landlords of the new town to their side, they even succeeded in convincing the little retail-dealers ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... in a battle the dastardly and timorous soldier throws away his shield on the first appearance of an enemy, and runs as fast as he can, and on that account loses his life sometimes, though he has never received even one wound, when he ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of fortitude there can be no happiness, because, amidst the thousand uncertainties of life, there can be no enjoyment of tranquillity. The man of feeble and timorous spirit lives under perpetual alarms. He sees every distant danger and tremble; he explores the regions of possibility to discover the dangers that may arise: often he creates imaginary ones; always magnifies those that ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... dread, unmitigated pest Man after man, and day succeeding day, With taint voracious; like the herds they fell Of bellowing beeves, or flocks of timorous sheep: On funeral, funeral hence forever piled. E'en he who fled the afflicted, urged by love Of life too fond, and trembling for his fate, Repented soon severely, and himself Sunk in his guilty solitude, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... I question not, my honest friend; tapping again. And being assured, if she heard my voice, that her timorous and soft temper would make her betray herself, by some flutters, to my listning ear, I said aloud, I am confident Miss Harlowe is here: dearest Madam, open the door: admit me but for one ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... were of the dearest importance; for they relieved his mind from a weight which had been oppressing it for some time, and set his heart at rest. Egan, it must be remarked, was an odd mixture of courage and cowardice: undaunted by personal danger, but strangely timorous where moral courage was required. A remarkable shyness, too, made him hesitate constantly in the utterance of a word which might explain away any difficulty in which he chanced to find himself; and this helped ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... it is to be efficacious, shift all our values and set us to loving as He loved—"He who would not in the same cases do the same things Jesus Christ hath done can never be saved," for love is never timorous.[40] The love of Christ is to dwell within us and every man is to be the object of it. God and we are to become one spirit, that is, one in will and one in desire. Christ must live within us. We must be filled with the Holy Ghost, which is the God of Love; ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... be real in its method as well as in its substance. We have fairly entered upon the era in which education must be, and, spite of any temporary recoil of timorous despotisms, must continue to be, popular and universal. But many are too apt to forget that, upon our planet, this thing of popular and universal education is comparatively a new and untried experience; that, so far as its mode and substance are concerned, it is, in truth, still in course of experiment. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... the timorous Madame Delphine many trifles became, one after another, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weeks elapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But at length, one day in May, 1822, in a small ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... graves—their way thither cheered and smoothed by Mrs. Aubrey's Christian charity and benevolence! 'Twas a touching sight to see her two beautiful grandchildren, in whose company she delighted, brought, with a timorous and half-reluctant air, into her presence. How strange must have seemed to them the cheerfulness of the motionless figure always lying in the bed; a cheerfulness which, though gentle as gentle could be, yet sufficed not to assure the little things, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Turbessel, in Syria, [72] Joscelin neglected the defence of the Christian frontier beyond the Euphrates. In his absence, Zenghi, the first of the Atabeks, besieged and stormed his capital, Edessa, which was feebly defended by a timorous and disloyal crowd of Orientals: the Franks were oppressed in a bold attempt for its recovery, and Courtenay ended his days in the prison of Aleppo. He still left a fair and ample patrimony But the victorious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... indecisive in action, and anxious about their affairs. They are given early to morbid introspection, and are easily worried about their own indispositions or the illnesses of their friends. They are often timorous and apprehensive, and prone to pedantism. The moral sentiments are pronounced in most cases, and if they are, as a rule, somewhat exigent and egotistic, they have a lively ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... then in London, when the summons came unto me. I was timorous of Committees, being ever by some of them calumniated, upbraided, scorned, and derided. However I must and did appear; and let me never forget that great affection and care yourself (Oh most excellent and learned Esquire Ashmole) shewed unto me at that time. First, your affection ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... ... Beyond the general grouping of the colours there is nothing to remind us of our own Bush-hawk; and that there is no great protective resemblance is sufficiently manifested, from the fact that our cuckoo is persecuted on every possible occasion by the tits, which are timorous enough in the ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavour to become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in the present time, where the faults and errors of humanity, checked by the imperfect timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those who have stopped at no crime. It is a dreadful part of the example, that infernal malevolence has had pious apologists, who read their lectures on frailties in favour of crimes; who abandon the weak, and court the ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... creeps With elfin feet around each stone and reed, Working fine masonry; while o'er the dam, Dashing, a noise of waters fills the clear And nitrous air. All the dark, wintry hours Sharply the winds from the white level moors Keen whistle. Timorous in his homely bed The school-boy listens, fearful lest gaunt wolves Or beasts, whose uncouth forms in ancient books He has beheld, at creaking shutters pull Howling. And when at last the languid dawn In wind redness re-illumines the east With ineffectual fire, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... of sixteen followed her, ugly and misshapen as a gargoyle; he carried the baby in a sling on his back. Two timorous little girls came last. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Verner may have been at a loss what to say next. When deliberately assured by any timorous spirit that they have "seen a ghost," it is waste of time to enter ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... showed much alarm the first time his wife suggested that they ought to move and spend some of their money in decorating a new shop. However, Lisa only shrugged her shoulders and smiled at finding him so timorous. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... in my address—the tones of my voice were loud—my manner was all empressement, except when I was actually angry, and then it was cold. hard, dry, inflexible. I was the last person in the world to pass for an amiable. Now, Julia, on the other hand, was quiet, subdued, timorous—the tones of a strong, decided voice startled her—she shrunk from controversy—yielded always with a happy grace in anticipation of the conflict, and showed, in all respects, that nice, almost nervous organization which attaches the value of principles and morals to mere manners, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... constitutional languor of the patient. The general corruption, mitigated by his calm and unadventurous temperament, showed itself in omissions and desertions, not in positive crimes; and his inactivity, though sometimes timorous and selfish, becomes respectable when compared with the malevolent and perfidious ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... personally acquainted with any of us. He promised that I should have some hogs the next day; but I had much ado to obtain a promise from him to visit me on board. He said he was, mataou no to poupoue, that is, afraid of the guns. Indeed all his actions shewed him to be a timorous prince. He was about thirty years of age, six feet high, and a fine, personable, well-made man as one can see. All his subjects appeared uncovered before him, his father not excepted. What is meant by uncovering, is the making bare the head and shoulders, or wearing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... yards they saw me and rushed back to the drain. After a few minutes the larger of these two, probably the male, ventured forth again and reached the middle of the road, when he discovered that his more timorous companion had not followed but was only just peeping out. He stopped and elevated his neck some five or six inches, planting the fore-feet so as to lift him up high to see round, while his hindquarters were flush with the road, quite flat in the dust in ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... manner which has insured a great fear of his presence. We have indeed through our hunting instituted a very thorough-going and continuous system of selection which has tended to affirm in these creatures an intense fear of our kind. Only the more timorous have escaped us, and year after year we proceed to remove with the gun the individuals which by chance are born with any considerable share of the primitive tolerance of man's presence. It is not to be ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so proud as not only to be supercilious and haughty with common ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... mop-headed cannibal, unless, perhaps, under very strong provocation. I mean the feelings, not the bodies. As against spears, knives, hatchets, clubs, or arrows, old Nelson had proved himself capable of taking his own part. In every other respect he had a timorous soul. So he sat on the back verandah with a concerned expression, and whenever the voices of his daughter and Jasper Allen reached him, he would blow out his cheeks and let the air escape with a dismal sound, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... happiness, of an innocent and patriotic people were involved; and because his conduct in this exigency evinced that his general habits of circumspection and deliberation were the results of wisdom and complete self- possession, and not the easy virtues of a spirit constitutionally timorous and hesitating. He was sitting at table with the principal British officers, when a certain general addressed him in strong and violent terms concerning this outrage of the Maltese, reminding him of the necessity of exerting ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... more. As the minutes passed, her timorous gaze continued steadfastly on the stern countenance before her. She dully expected something terrible to happen when Ed Sorenson appeared, for she knew Ed would be angry; but she had been powerless to prevent the ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... the manner of approach of the practitioner, are wont to flinch, and there is manifested a pseudo-supersensitiveness. Young animals not accustomed to being handled are likely to be timorous, and one must not hastily conclude that a part is painful to the touch because the subject resents even gentle digital manipulation of such parts. In instances of this kind, one needs to compare sensibility by manipulation of different ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... board, we still found, from their cautious and timorous behaviour, that they were under some unaccountable apprehensions; and an uncommon degree of satisfaction was visible in their countenances, on the German's finding a person amongst us with whom he could converse. This was Mr Webber, who spoke that language perfectly well; and at last, though with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... means, bread was always to be had in plenty, and as cheap as usual, as I said above; and provisions were never wanting in the markets, even to such a degree that I often wondered at it, and reproached myself with being so timorous and cautious in stirring abroad, when the country people came freely and boldly to market, as if there had been no manner of infection in the city, ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... a thought timorous, having the bit laddie Benjie fast asleep in my arms; and as I saw that Tammie's horse was a wee fidgety; and glad, I dare say, poor thing, to find itself so near home. We heard the water, far down below, roaring and hushing over the rocks, and thro' among the Duke's woods—big, thick, black ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... do? She, a coward par eminence, known to be the most timorous of the whole family; her tremors at all sorts of imagined dangers affording laughter to the flock of sisters and brothers. Should she stay on her knees after having seen that dark shape, as if going on with her prayers, while revolving some plan of procedure? ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... nor submission the timorous: no age or sex was spared: infants on the breast were pierced by the same blow with their mothers, who implored for mercy: even a multitude to the number of ten thousand persons, who had surrendered themselves prisoners, and were promised quarter, were butchered in cold ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... would really constitute a menace for us or not, this much would be certain—that the more timid and timorous among us would believe it to be a menace, and it would furnish an irresistible plea for a very greatly enlarged naval and military establishment. We too, in that case would probably be led to organize our nation on the lines on which the European military nations have organized ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and her whole form seemed changed,—she was no longer the majestic sibyl, but the attached, timorous, delighted woman. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... near to the top of the hill, two men ran up to meet him, whose names were Timorous and Mistrust, to whom Christian said, Sirs, what ails you? ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... was nothing to be so mightily timorous about, for, according to my calculation, two smaller or whiter feet didn't leave their prints in the sand that day, though I do make that assertion with my own lips, that ought ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... fields, which led towards the home-farm, she came to a full stop, and fell to rubbing her nose against the rail,—an occupation from which the parson, finding all civil remonstrances in vain, at length diverted her by a timorous application of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a weake Mathematician who mistrusts the strength of this argument, nor can hee know much in Astronomy, who understands not the parallax, which is the foundation of that Science, and I am sure that hee is a timorous man, who dares not believe the frequent experience of his senses, ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... Jemima had bidden her brother a reluctant farewell. In her secret soul, she nursed a doubt, of which, indeed, she was half-ashamed, as to the prospect of his safe return; and she endeavoured to fortify her timorous heart by the utterance of sundry sharp speeches concerning the folly of ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... elves, Drag their treasures from the shelves. Jack the Giant-killer's gone, Mother Goose and Oberon, Bluebeard and King Solomon. Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... head to foot. When we would meet a bevy of these creatures on the road in the dusk of evening, their white, fluttering garments would give them the appearance of winged celestials. The Turkish women are generally timorous of men, and especially so of foreigners. Those of the rural districts, however, are not so shy as their city cousins. We frequently met them at work in groups about the villages or in the open fields, and would sometimes ask for a drink ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... we had seen, the antelope seems to possess the most wonderful fleetness. Shy and timorous, they generally repose only on the ridges, which command a view of all the approaches of an enemy: the acuteness of their sight distinguishes the most distant danger; the delicate sensibility of their smell defeats the precautions of concealment; and, when alarmed, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... the belated levies of Tilbury, commanded by Leicester, never saw the flash of Farnese's guns. For the superiority of Spain was not by sea, nor the greatness of England on land. But England thenceforth was safe, and had Scotland in tow. Elizabeth occupied a position for which her timorous and penurious policy, during so many years, had not prepared the world. She proposed terms to Philip. She would interfere no more in the Low Countries, if he would grant toleration. Farnese entered into the scheme, but Philip refused. The lesson of the Armada ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... a mind to escape from her inspection, and caprice and appetite instated in uncontrolled command and boundless dominion! Such a casuist may surely engage with certainty of success in vindication of an entertainment which in an instant gives confidence to the timorous and kindles ardour in the cold, an entertainment where the vigilance of jealousy has so often been clouded, and the virgin is set free from the necessity of languishing in silence; where all the outworks of chastity are at once demolished; where the heart is laid open ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... innocent girl's mind by the notion of the sinfulness of erotic dreams. She menstruated first at the age of 14. "Before this," she writes, "I had sometimes been awakened from the deepest sleep in a surprising manner. Imagination played no part; I exercised it on too many serious subjects, and my timorous conscience preserved it from amusement with other subjects, so that it could not represent what I would not allow it to seek to understand. But an extraordinary effervescence aroused my senses in the heat of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shock sustained by all nations during the prevalence of the black plague is without parallel and beyond description. In the eyes of the timorous, danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell victims to fear on the first appearance of the distemper, and the most stout-hearted lost their confidence. The pious closed their accounts with the world; their only remaining desire was for a participation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... forward. The people are timorous, said they; we must threaten them; they will submit only to force. Soldiers, chastise this ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... houses with their flowery gardens and then, suddenly timorous, she decided not to go too far afield. She might get lost, she might meet nasty people or horned beasts. A little path on her right hand had an inviting look; it might lead her down through the trees to the water's edge. ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... born thus contrary to laws of nature, her timorous woman's heart was doubtful; her mind, through fear, swayed between extremes: Not distinguishing the happy from the sad portents, again and again she gave way to grief; and now the aged women of the world, in a confused way supplicating heavenly guidance, implored the gods to whom their ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... pointing close upon the hour of ten while Tansey was playing billiards with a number of his friends. On alternate evenings he was released from duty at the store after seven o'clock. Even among his fellow-men Tansey was timorous and constrained. In his imagination he had done valiant deeds and performed acts of distinguished gallantry; but in fact he was a sallow youth of twenty-three, with an over-modest demeanour ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... interrupted the king. "Womankind are but frail flesh, sir; easily molded; easily won. She is a woman; therefore, soft, yielding; yours for the asking. You are over valorous at a distance; too timorous near her. Approach her boldly, and, though she were Diana's self, I'll answer for your victory! Eh, Triboulet, are our ladies cold-hearted, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... its cause. He never was a warrior, though a true soldier. He never was a courtier, though he had always a good mind to be one. He never was a good party man, though his whole life was engaged in partisanship. He was very timorous and bashful in conversation, and thought he always stood in need of apologies, which, considering that his "Maxims" showed not great regard for virtue, and that his practice was always to get out of affairs with the same hurry as he got into them, makes me conclude that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... dropped into church just before sarmon-time. There was a rabbit squattin' outside 'pon his father's tombstone. Squire crep' up an' clapped his Sunday hat 'pon top of en. Took en into church. One o' the curate chaps was preachin'—a timorous little fellah. By-'n'-by Squire slips out his rabbit. 'Wirroo, boys! Coorse en, coorse en—we'll have en for dinner!' Aw, a pretty dido! The curate fellah ran out to door an' the rabbit after en. Folks did say the rabbit was the old Squire's ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the CONSEQUENCE, but seldom or never the MEANS of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy. ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... get lost in the nearby groves. In the kitchen, too, she made her authority felt like a regular house-mistress, but the minute that she heard her husband's voice she shrank into a respectful and timorous silence. Upon sitting down at table, the China would look at him with devoted submission, her great, round eyes fixed on him, like an owl's. Desnoyers felt that in this mute admiration was mingled great astonishment at the energy with which the ranchman, already over seventy, was ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... we again reached Noweyba, the place where we had first reached the coast. We here met Ayd's deaf friend. Szaleh had all the way, betrayed the most timorous disposition; in excuse for running away when we were attacked, he said that he intended to halt farther on in the Wady, in order to cover our retreat, and that he had been obliged to run after the camels, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... boats. Some few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Argyle now, his kinsmen to rally? Where, where is the chieftain with timorous soul? On Linnhe's grey waters he crouched in his galley, And saw as a traitor the battle blast roll:— Ungrasped was the hilt of his broadsword, still sleeping, Unheard was his voice in the moment of need; Secure from the rage ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... from a power of seeing things vividly inside your mind," said a voice, timorous and wheezy, away ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... score of sober workmen in a garret lit by an inefficient oil-lamp. When the party had divided into three sections, each under its own leader and in its own garret, he had discontinued his attendances. The workmen's discussions, he said, were too timorous; the interest they took in the question of wages was inordinate. He felt that they were hard-featured realists and that they resented an exactitude which was the produce of a leisure not within their reach. No social revolution, he told her, would ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... and jack bailiffs of the big mercantile houses, warmed into drunken courage by gallons of cheap wine, yelped in unison. This auriferous insect, who was for four years comptroller of the currency, is remembered in Washington chiefly for a remarkable burst of speed displayed one night when his timorous mind conceived the idea that a somnolent hackman was going to rob him. He had his dress suit case in one hand and his plug hat in the other, and he covered three blocks in ten seconds. The cabby, whom he had hired, waked in time to discover the meteoric dash, and was the most ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... had warned the Laird of Ellangowan on Ellangowan's height! In her shriveled hand it would seem she held the very sapling which for the last time she had plucked from the bonny woods which had so long waved above her bit shealing, until driven thence by the timorous and weak-minded laird. With this she again touched me, and in a half inviting, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... agin that little feller. He's as peaceable a boy as ever I saw, and I guess I can't let him stay all bolted and barred into no jail, when it don't need anythin' but my say-so to get him out. Ye see, gentlemen,"—Solomon paused, moistened his dry mouth, and cast a timorous look over the puzzled faces of the jurymen,—"ye see, 't was me that ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... punishment and cursings more habitual to his thoughts, and perhaps more congenial to the time, than prosperity and blessing. It might be even that a faint apprehension (not fear, for in his own person Knox had little occasion for fear even had he been of a timorous nature) of further trouble with the Queen overclouded his aspect: and if he caught a glimpse of the ladies and their cavaliers on the mainland, the joyous cavalcade would rouse no sympathetic pleasure, so sure was he that their frolics and youthful pleasure were ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... became a crime. The accepted system of weights and measures, the calendar—nothing was too well tried to compete with innovation. In America, the rights of man were eventually tacked on to the tail of the American Constitution as an afterthought to conciliate the timorous, "a tub thrown to the whale," as the first ten amendments have been called. In France, the rights of man overshadowed the working part of the constitution, delaying essential details by their incorporation, ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... the sedge by the creek a flight of clamorous killdees Rose from their timorous sleep with piercing and iterant challenge, Wheeled in the starlight and fled away into distance and silence. White on the other hand lay the tents, and beyond them glided the river, Where the broadhorn[A] drifted slow at the will of the current, And where the boatman ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... early from the Home Office, met her in that dark hall, to which he had paid no attention since his young wife died, fifteen years ago. Embracing him, with a smile of love almost timorous from intensity, Frances Freeland looked him up and down, and, catching what light there was gleaming on his temples, determined that she had in her bag, as soon as she could get it open, the very thing for dear ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... meaning; for now, as in an agony, her lips fashioned the words: "If I forget his face I may as well die;" and she wandered on, striving more and more vainly to call up his features. The—"Does he think of me?" and—"What am I to him?"—such timorous little feather-play of feminine emotion she knew nothing of: in her heart was the strong flood of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with politics, and you would lose patience in a very short time. I do myself, occasionally. Many who are the foremost in talk, when there is no prospect of doing anything, draw back when the time approaches for action, and it is sickening to listen to the timorous objections and paltry arguments that are brought forward. Here am I, a man of sixty, ready to risk life and fortune in the good cause, and there are many, not half my age, who speak with as much caution as if they were graybeards. Still, lad, I have no doubt that the matter ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... in the place calculated to alarm the most timorous of mortals; and as the boy glanced round he saw simply just what he had seen there many times before—the grindstone, Uncle Roger's box, some gardening tools, and sticks for rose-trees and other plants, a quantity of matting stuff which had been ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, she will meet the slow and encourage the timorous. The want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... rule, Mok was a coward, but two glasses of beer were enough to turn his nature in precisely the opposite direction. A glass less would have left him timorous, a glass more would have made him foolhardy and silly. He saw that somebody was about to stab his old friend. In five long, noiseless steps, or leaps, he was behind that somebody, and had seized the arm ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... ones, and shining ones,—the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with the money,—the black man in the bright vesture,—Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood,—Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous,—all are actually existing beings to us. We follow the travellers through their allegorical progress with interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London. Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the abstract ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... naturally sad, had, dark presentiments. In veiled words he announced catastrophes. His timorous phrases came through the flowers, and irritated M. Schmoll, who began to grumble and to prophesy. He explained that Christian nations were incapable, alone and by themselves, of throwing off barbarism, and that without the Jews and the Arabs Europe would be ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... moment." He gazed directly at Draycott, who bowed, choking slightly. It was inconceivable to imagine that the resplendent one thought he might—to put it in the vulgar tongue—pinch his bath. By nature he was a timorous individual, and that green dressing-gown—ye ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... is the hour of dusk and mist and midges, Now the tired planes drone homeward through the haze, And distant wood-fires wink behind the ridges, And the first flare some timorous Hun betrays; Now no shell circulates, but all men brood Over their evening food; The bats flit warily and owl and rat With muffled cries their shadowy loves pursue, And pleasant, Corporal, it is to chat In this hushed moment with a man ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... has had losses in life, losses not so bad as to cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury of starvation, let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by no means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money has been invested in West Diddlesex bonds, or other luckless speculations—the news of the smash comes; you pay your outlying bills with the balance at the banker's; you assemble your family and make ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more than a lawyer, now considerably less. At one moment he is setting common law at defiance, at another he is twisting the law to the purposes of corruption, and taking refuge behind the forms which he is expressly charged with heroically setting at defiance. Had Lord Mansfield been less timorous, Junius might have been less daring. At the close of one of his letters the reckless assailant writes "Beware how you indulge the first emotions of your resentment. This paper is delivered to the world, and cannot be recalled. The ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... in progress: they had been spoken of allusively, quite comprehensibly, after the fashion common with two entertaining a secret semi-hostility on a particular subject; one of them being the creature that blushes and is educated to be delicate, reserved, and timorous. He was not ignorant, and he had left her, and he would not reply to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... positive religion contains beyond the moral law is superstition, which puts emphasis on worthless trivialities. The true religion occupies the happy mean between miserable unfaith, on the one hand, and timorous superstition, wild fanaticism, and pietistical zeal on the other. In proclaiming the sovereignty of reason in the sphere of religion as well as elsewhere, we are only openly demanding what our opponents have tacitly acknowledged in ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... this produced the noise which had disquieted him. He writes in conclusion: "Thus many events which seem to defy all explanation have really come to pass by accident, or in the course of nature. Out of such manifestations as these the unlettered, the superstitious, the timorous, and the over-hasty make for themselves miracles."[274] Again, after telling a strange story of a boy who beheld the image of a thief in the neck of a phial, and of some incantations of Josephus Niger, he concludes: ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... hair, coiled up in a knot at the back, and the women—the descendants of those who sailed with broken Fletcher Christian and his comrades of the Bounty in quest of a place where to die—soft-voiced, and with big, timorous eyes. ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... man, dressed in the Sunday garb of a civilian—fustian breeches, moleskin waistcoat, and a frock of blue broadcloth, very shiny at the seams. His hat had fallen off in the struggle, and his eyes, timorous as a hare's, seemed to plead for mercy while he ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... frown'd, who had not frown'd before; And, as I thought, in her right hand she bore A Parchment Scroll, which strait she downward threw, For the pale, timorous Lordling to review. A Will it seem'd;—and soon, with weeping eye, He told ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... remaining they might seem to be identifying themselves with a cause that was either lost or lawless. With the tribunes vanished the last trace of legality. The priests closed the temple to keep its precincts from the mob. The more timorous of the crowd fled in wild disorder, spreading wilder rumours. Tiberius was deposing the remaining tribunes from office; he was appointing himself to a further tribunate without the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... tell me your name and where you live." So Paul told him, and then added timidly enough that he would fain know how to begin to practise his art. "Silence!" said the minstrel, rather fiercely; "that is an evil and timorous thought. If you are worthy, you will find the way." And so in the hot afternoon he said farewell, and walked lightly off. And Paul stood in wonder and hope, and saw the two figures leave the flat, take to the down, and wind up the ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the sails set, and Davies was darting swiftly to and fro between the tiller and jib-sheets, while the Dulcibella bowed a lingering farewell to the shore and headed for the open fiord. Erratic puffs from the high land behind made her progress timorous at first, but soon the fairway was reached and a true breeze from Flensburg and the west took her in its friendly grip. Steadily she rustled down the calm blue highway whose soft beauty was the introduction to a passage in my life, short, but pregnant with moulding force, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the majority of ministers favored the adoption of the King's proposal; but Stampoff scowled at them angrily and drowned their timorous agreement by his ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the privilege myself, damsel," said Guarine; "but for these fellows, they are not so timorous as you suppose them, being even too ready to avouch their roguery when it hath less excuse—Besides, I promised them impunity.—Have you any ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... to Esther, at once spirited, pointed, and effectual. It was a moment that demanded instantaneous action; and if the timorous queen cherished apprehensions on her own account, he showed her that she was even more likely to suffer by an ignominious retreat than a bold advance. He reminded her of her Jewish extraction, and the consequent danger to herself in the arrangement to exterminate all that hated race. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... and timorous souls, who in this terrible moment of our history, reproach themselves for having loved and served the cause of the weak. They see only one point in space, they believe that the people whom they have ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... ceremony took place in Fred Langdon's barn, where I was submitted to a series of trials not calculated to soothe the nerves of a timorous boy. Before being led to the Grotto of Enchantment—such was the modest title given to the loft over my friend's wood-house—my hands were securely pinioned, and my eyes covered with a thick silk handkerchief. At the head of the stairs ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... see her, as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and scaling her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... a confused, terrifying noise of panting breaths and trampling feet. It came sweeping down the broad trail. There were grunting cries, also; and Grom understood at once that a herd of pig-tapirs—heavy-footed, timorous beasts, as tall as heifers—were sweeping down upon them in mad flight before some ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Rome came under that influence the Greek world was very old and weary. It was Rome's misfortune and not her fault that when she was old enough to go to school, Alexandrianism with its pedantic detail was the order of the day in mythology, and the timorous post-Socratic schools were the teachers of philosophy. Naturally if Rome had been another Greece she would have worked back from these later forms to the truer, purer spirit, but Rome was not Greece, and no thoughtful man ever pretended that she was. In the third ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... threaten to cut their Throats, to make them hand their Sails, and keep under Shore, not to fright, as well as hazard the Lives of the Passengers, when there was no need of it. But I am satisfied, that the less frighted and timorous their Passengers are, the more cautious and careful the Watermen are, and the least apt to run into Danger. Whereas, if their Passengers appear frighted, then the Watermen grow saucy and audacious, show themselves venturous, and contemn the Dangers ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... servant, or as an animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was seldom honored; she was doomed to household drudgeries as if she were capable of nothing higher; in short, her lot was hard, because it was unequal, humiliating, and sometimes degrading, making her to be either timorous, frivolous, or artful. Her amusements were trivial, her taste vitiated, her education neglected, her rights violated, her aspirations scorned. The poets represented her as capricious, fickle, and false. She rose ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... the round of the ship with him and others and his guest, this far-away son of Great India. So, presently, he was taken to view the horses and the cattle. Whoever hath seen lions brought to a court for show hath seen some shrinking from too-close and heard timorous asking if the bars be really strong. And the old, wild beasts at Rome for the games. If one came by chance upon them in a narrow quarter there might be terror. And the bull that we goad to madness for ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... through heaven there went the wake Of shaft of young Hyrtacides, and clave the flowing air, And, flying home, amid the mast that stood before it there It stuck: the mast shook therewithal; the frighted, timorous bird, Fluttered her wings; and mighty praise all round about was heard. Then stood forth Mnestheus keen, and drew his bow unto the head, Aiming aloft; and shaft and eyes alike therewith he sped; But, worthy of all ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... not whether the following version of her story will retain any portion of its pristine character; but, as Zenobia told it wildly and rapidly, hesitating at no extravagance, and dashing at absurdities which I am too timorous to repeat,—giving it the varied emphasis of her inimitable voice, and the pictorial illustration of her mobile face, while through it all we caught the freshest aroma of the thoughts, as they came bubbling out of her mind,—thus narrated, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... us at ease, and he had the right art; one could not remain doubtful and timorous where a person was so earnest and simple and gentle, and talked so alluringly as he did; no, he won us over, and it was not long before we were content and comfortable and chatty, and glad we had found this new friend. When the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The timorous, odorous violet must be sprouting on the damp ground yonder under the alders! And he went looking along the stream for those little purple flowers that bring dreams of love with their fragrance! He would make a bouquet to offer Leonora as ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... drawing back now. Whichever of them was forced by circumstances to be the protagonist in the enterprise, the thing must be done. Their intention to become husband and wife, at first halting and timorous, had accumulated momentum with the lapse of hours, till it now bore down every ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... adjectival surnames which are not immediately recognizable. Bolt, when not local (Chapter XIII) is for bold, Leaf is imitative for lief, i.e. dear. Dear itself is of course hopelessly mixed up with Deer... The timorous-looking Fear is Fr. le fier, the proud or fierce. Skey is an old form of shy; Bligh is for Blyth; Hendy and Henty are related to handy, and had in Mid. English the sense ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... raise him to the highest dignities; another, if he has stored up in his own granary whatsoever is swept from the Libyan thrashing floors: him who delights to cut with the hoe his patrimonial fields, you could never tempt, for all the wealth of Attalus, [to become] a timorous sailor and cross the Myrtoan sea in a Cyprian bark. The merchant, dreading the south-west wind contending with the Icarian waves, commends tranquility and the rural retirement of his village; but soon after, incapable of being taught to bear poverty, he refits his shattered ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... artistical performer, one is really at a loss to say in what line of character he has excelled the most. The Titanic grandeur of Lear, the human debasement of Werner, the frank vivacity of Henry V, the gloomy and timorous guilt of King John, or that—his last—personation of Macbeth, in which it seemed to me that he conveyed a more correct notion of what Shakespeare designed than I can recollect to have read in the most profound of the German critics; ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... like it. It has often made me think of my poor wife till I cried. I have sometimes got up to the window to look if I could see anybody, but as soon as I opened the casement all was hushed, and nobody to be seen; and I have listened, and listened till I have been so timorous, that even the trembling of the leaves in the breeze has made me start. They say it often comes to warn people of their death, but I have heard it these many ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Dragon." The old inn used to stand slap opposite the church; and there, in the parlour-window, were assembled all the Duke's men—Squire Martin and his son, Roger Newte, John a Hall, the Parson, and, all the rest of the gang—as well to see how the people would take it as to give the timorous Overseers a backing. This was Newte's idea—to sit there in full view, put a bold face on it, and have the row—if row there was to be—over at once. And, to top it up, they had both the Whig candidates with them—these ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said the young man; "names do not matter. The ghastly, unspeakable dread is to be timorous, halting, the ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... "Pish, you timorous one!" he laughed, and resumed his tale. "I am from Artois, then. I have some property there, and it lately came to my ears that this assembly of curs they call the Convention had determined to make an end of me. But before they could carry out their ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... space, here at the left, the reporters tip their chairs against the hair-greased wall, and sharpen their pencils. A few tardy visitors, familiar with the place, tiptoe in through the grimy doors, ducking and winking, and softly lifting and placing their chairs, with a mock-timorous upward glance toward the long, ungainly personage who, under a faded and tattered crimson canopy, fills the august bench of magistracy with its high oaken back. On the right, behind a rude wooden paling that rises from the floor to the smoke-stained ceiling, are the peering, bloated ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the Celestial empire, and the people in Eten, a small village near Piura, speak a language unknown to their neighbors, and are said to easily hold converse with the coolies of the vicinage. When and how did this intercourse exist, is rather difficult to answer. I am even timorous to insinuate it, lest the believers in the chronology of the Bible, who make the world a little more than 5800 years old, should come down upon me, and, after pouring upon my humble self their most damning ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... animals we had seen, the antelope seems to possess the most wonderful fleetness. Shy and timorous, they generally repose only on the ridges, which command a view of all the approaches of an enemy: the acuteness of their sight distinguishes the most distant danger; the delicate sensibility of their smell defeats the precautions of concealment; ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... was passed, and meanwhile the work of negotiation went prosperously on. The minds of the Indians had been already prepared. In La Salle they saw their champion against the Iroquois, the standing terror of all this region. They gathered around his stronghold like the timorous peasantry of the middle ages around the rock-built castle of their feudal lord. From the wooden ramparts of St. Louis,—for so he named his fort,— high and inaccessible as an eagle's nest, a strange scene lay before his eye. ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... administrations, is sketched with great force and fidelity. In our days the character of a cabinet depends upon the party. In those days the character of the cabinet depended upon the premier. Walpole was bold, open, steady, and never dejected: Pelham was timorous, reserved, fickle, and apt to despair. Presumption made Walpole many enemies: want of confidence in himself estranged from Pelham many friends. Walpole was content to have one great view, and would overlook or trample on the intermediate degrees: Pelham could never reach a great view, through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... retreated towards the open room-door, came the last outburst of her invectives, high-pitched in their voluble utterance, against him, against them both, against everybody, including Mr. Raddle in the kitchen—"a base, faint-hearted, timorous wretch, that's afraid to come upstairs and face the ruffinly creaturs—that's afraid to come—that's afraid!" Ending with her screaming descent of the stairs in the midst of a loud double-knock, upon the arrival just then of the Pickwickians, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... is rounded off in the first scene of the fourth act when she begs the Elector to liberate Homburg. She could have borne the death of the Prince, but this timorous misrepresentation of himself ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... setting common law at defiance, at another he is twisting the law to the purposes of corruption, and taking refuge behind the forms which he is expressly charged with heroically setting at defiance. Had Lord Mansfield been less timorous, Junius might have been less daring. At the close of one of his letters the reckless assailant writes "Beware how you indulge the first emotions of your resentment. This paper is delivered to the world, and cannot be recalled. The prosecution of an innocent printer cannot alter ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... not 'them!' 'Error quidem, non tamen homo errans, abominandus': or, to pun a little, 'abhominandus'. Be bold in denouncing the heresy, but slow and timorous in denouncing the erring brother as a heretic. The unmistakable passions of a factionary and a schismatic, the ostentatious display, the ambition and dishonest arts of a sect-founder, must be superinduced on the false doctrine, before the heresy ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and Davies was darting swiftly to and fro between the tiller and jib-sheets, while the Dulcibella bowed a lingering farewell to the shore and headed for the open fiord. Erratic puffs from the high land behind made her progress timorous at first, but soon the fairway was reached and a true breeze from Flensburg and the west took her in its friendly grip. Steadily she rustled down the calm blue highway whose soft beauty was the introduction to ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... tenderness by the national party whose just expectations he has disappointed; the opposition to his schemes has, indeed, exhibited, if anything, too much of the style of "bated breath" to befit the dignity of independent legislators; and the only result of this timorous dissent has been to inflame him with the notion that the public men who offered it were conscious that the people were on his side, and concealed anxiety for their own popularity under a feigned indisposition ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... beginning of the Revolution the Marquise de Combray had numbered herself among the unchangeable royalists. Her husband, a timorous and quiet man, who employed in reading the hours that he did not consecrate to sleep, had long since abandoned to her the direction of the household and the management of his fortune. Widowhood had but strengthened ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... nothing to be so mightily timorous about, for, according to my calculation, two smaller or whiter feet didn't leave their prints in the sand that day, though I do make that assertion with my own lips, that ought to ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... shall be married at midnight at the Church of Sainte-Valere, after a very gay evening. I confess that my fears give me a martyr-like and modest air to which I have no right, but which will be admired—why, I cannot conceive. I am delighted to see that poor Felipe is every whit as timorous as I am; society grates on him, he is like a bat in ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... ever sprightly and vigorous it was when the cardinal was with him, for he depended so much on everything he did, he that was at the utmost dilemma when he was absent, always timorous, jealous, and irresolute. ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... drunken courage by gallons of cheap wine, yelped in unison. This auriferous insect, who was for four years comptroller of the currency, is remembered in Washington chiefly for a remarkable burst of speed displayed one night when his timorous mind conceived the idea that a somnolent hackman was going to rob him. He had his dress suit case in one hand and his plug hat in the other, and he covered three blocks in ten seconds. The cabby, whom he had hired, waked in time to discover ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... this sheltering hour he nightly came, And found her trusty window open wide, And knew the signal of the timorous flame, That long the restless curtain would not hide Her form that stood beside; As scarce she dared to be delighted, Listening to that sweet tale, that is no shame To faithful lovers, that their hearts ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... which Pamela suffers from Lady Davers might be shorten'd: That she is too timorous after owning her Marriage to that Lady, and ought to have a little more Spirit, and [del. 5th] {get away sooner out at the Window, or} call her own Servants to protect, and carry her to her ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... Goose and Oberon, Bluebeard and King Solomon. Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger on Weeping ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... and grew ever fainter, as if to remind us of the past. At the beginning of October, however, I at once began to compose Tristan, finishing the first act by the new year, when I was already engaged in orchestrating the prelude. During that time I developed a dreamy, timorous passion for retirement. Work, long walks in all winds and weathers, evenings spent in reading Calderon—such was my mode of life, and if it was disturbed, I was thrown into the deepest state of irritation. My connection with the world confined itself almost entirely ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... persons by having them quietly stabbed or shot—nothing was ever proved against him though everybody knew it was his work—he experienced no further opposition in his political career. Morena never threatens, they say; he performs. A safe man! From a timorous Liberal Government, his avowed enemies, he extorted the title of Commendatore; not because he attached any value to such outward distinctions but because, like a true Camorrista, he never lost an opportunity ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Jane! Your hound hath broken bounds again, And chased my timorous deer, O; If him I see, That hour he'll dee; My brakes shall be his ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... of Irish birth, an accomplished gentleman and a very human creature, with a big heart, a high ideal of what boys might be and abundant tolerance of what they generally were. If he had a quick temper, he had also a quick wit, and a quick appreciation of talent and sympathy with timorous aspirations. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... made me think of my poor wife till I cried. I have sometimes got up to the window to look if I could see anybody, but as soon as I opened the casement all was hushed, and nobody to be seen; and I have listened, and listened till I have been so timorous, that even the trembling of the leaves in the breeze has made me start. They say it often comes to warn people of their death, but I have heard it these many years, and outlived ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... a timorous nature, seldom, if ever, showing fight. Two of them nearly ran over me once as I was squatting on a deer run waiting for sambar, which were being beaten out of a hill. I flung my hat in the face of the leading one, on which both turned tail ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... French, Dutch, and Jewish merchants, whose interest was in a peculiar manner connected with the safety of the bank, exerted themselves for its support; and the directors having called in twenty per cent, upon their capital stock, were enabled to answer all the demands of the timorous and disaffected. All the noblemen and persons of distinction in Scotland, suspected of an attachment to the court of St. Germain's, were apprehended, and either imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh, or brought up to London to be confined in the Tower or in Newgate. Among these was the duke ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... throw the leathern ball Along the reedy shore, and circumvent Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal For fear of bold Poseidon's ravishment, And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes, Lest from the surf his azure arms ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... Sultan not to send troops into Southern Bulgaria; and the warning chimed in with the note of timorous cunning which formed the undertone of that monarch's thought and policy. Distracted by the news of the warlike preparations of Servia and Greece, Abdul Hamid looked on Russia's advice in a contrary sense as a piece of Muscovite ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face ...
— English Satires • Various
... Three Spires until they could be removed. But there was no Luke Raper at the warehouse, nor was he ever seen there again. The police found that he had vanished from his lodgings, leaving no clue whither he had gone, and he was never traced. Chippy always felt certain that he was the timorous partner of the pair of thieves, and had fled because he feared implication in the murder which he believed had ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... created would really constitute a menace for us or not, this much would be certain—that the more timid and timorous among us would believe it to be a menace, and it would furnish an irresistible plea for a very greatly enlarged naval and military establishment. We too, in that case would probably be led to organize our nation on the lines on which the European military nations ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... word of a coward," cried the king, who, although somewhat timorous about spirits, was in reality a bold, brave man, and felt nettled that any of his warriors should show the white feather. "If evil spirits are there, our fetishman will drive them away. Let the ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... baize. Nor was his commonplace book neglected; and in August we come upon an entry which shows that poetical aspirations were again possessing him; this time not to be cast forth, either at the timorous voice of Prudence or the importunate bidding of Poverty. Burns has calmly and critically taken stock—so to speak—of his literary aptitudes and abilities, and recognised his fitness for a place in the ranks of Scotland's poets. 'However I am pleased with the works of our Scotch poets, ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... however, be cautious of having anything to do with horses that are naturally shy; for horses that are excessively timorous will not only not allow the rider on their back to harm the enemy, but will often take him by surprize, and expose him to great danger. We must also learn whether the horse has anything of vice either toward other horses or toward men, and whether he is averse to being handled; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... of this little colony. His hand took up the ax, and forgot the sword and gun. Day after day he stood looking about him, examining and studying in little all the strange things which he saw; seeking to learn as much as might be of the timorous savages, who in time began to straggle back to their ruined villages; talking, as best he might, through such interpreting as was possible, with savages who came from the west of the Messasebe, and from the South and from the far Southwest; hearing, and learning and wondering ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Crystal from a further unpleasant scene. She, however, had not lost her presence of mind. She had certainly listened to de Marmont's final tirade, because she knew that she was helpless in his hands, but she had never been frightened for a moment. Jeanne was within call, and she herself had never been timorous: at the same time she was thankful enough that her father and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... at Cambridge was Thomas Cranmer, a learned and amiable divine with marked leanings towards the New Learning; who in his early graduate days had fallen under the influence of the teaching at Cambridge of Erasmus; in scholarship subtle and erudite, in affairs guileless and easily swayed; timorous by nature, but capable of outbreaks of audacity as timid persons often are: a gentle and lovable man, but lacking in that robust self-confidence needed by one who would take a resolutely independent line; a man intended to be a student and forced by an unkind fate to assume the role of a man of ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... years will bring a riper mind And clearer insight. Thus my days are past In contradiction; with no skill to part Vague longing, haply bred by want of power, From paramount impulse not to be withstood, 240 A timorous capacity from prudence, From circumspection, infinite delay. Humility and modest awe themselves Betray me, serving often for a cloak To a more subtle selfishness; that now 245 Locks every function up in blank reserve, Now dupes me, trusting to an anxious eye That ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... which are not immediately recognizable. Bolt, when not local (Chapter XIII) is for bold, Leaf is imitative for lief, i.e. dear. Dear itself is of course hopelessly mixed up with Deer... The timorous-looking Fear is Fr. le fier, the proud or fierce. Skey is an old form of shy; Bligh is for Blyth; Hendy and Henty are related to handy, and had in Mid. English the sense ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... and lay gazing at the speaker with a reverence almost canine; and that, when the rough soldier had unconsciously but thoroughly betrayed his better qualities, and above all his rare affection for Gerard, Kate, though timorous as a bird, stole her little hand into the warrior's huge brown palm, where it lay an instant like a tea-spoonful of cream spilt on a platter, then nipped the ball of his thumb and served for a Kardiometer. In other words, Fate is just even to rival storytellers, and balances ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... man was accounted handsome in a crude, back-country way and fancied himself the devil of a fellow with the ladies. "Wa'al," he drawled, "I reckon ef a gal kin undertake hit, I hain't none more timorous then what she air." And to that frankly spoken sentiment he added an inward after-word. "Folks 'lows thet she hain't got no time o' day fer men—but when we ends up this hyar trip, I'll know more erbout thet fer myself." He turned and began making his rough preparations ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... secure, So fast the door, so firm the lock; But, lo! he toddling comes to lure My parent ear with timorous knock. ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... the islands, to that degree that he delighted to call me and look on me as his brother. And should they fall out with these people, neither he nor his subjects know anything of weapons, and go naked, as I have said, and they are the most timorous people in the world. The few people left there are sufficient to conquer the country, and the island would thus remain without danger to them, they keeping ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... not read, I tied up the other, and, taking it under my arm, I went down stairs; and, after asking a question or two of the people of the house, I sallied forth into the street with a determined look, though at heart I felt somewhat timorous at the idea of venturing out alone into the mazes of the mighty city, of which I had heard much, but of which, of my own ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... regular forehead and nose, tightly compressed lips, and a rather sharp chin. Her hair, of a chestnut shade, fell low on her slender neck. In her whole personality, in the expression of her face, intent and a little timorous, in her clear but changing glance, in her smile, which was, as it were, intense, in her soft and uneven voice, there was something nervous, electric, something impulsive and hurried, something, in fact, which could never be attractive to every one, ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... of this rare combination was his union of courage with patience, of firm nonconformity with silent conformity. Compliance is always a question of degree, depending on time, circumstance, and subject. Mr. Mill hit the exact mean, equally distant from timorous caution and self-indulgent violence. He was unrivalled in the difficult art of conciliating as much support as was possible and alienating as little sympathy as possible, for novel and extremely unpopular opinions. He was not one of those who strive to spread new faiths by brilliant swordplay ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... the weather still continuing, all the wild animals began to perceive the effects, and, compelled by hunger, approached nearer to the habitations of man and the places they had been accustomed to avoid. A multitude of hares—the most timorous of all animals—were frequently seen scudding about the garden in search of the scanty vegetables which the severity of the season had spared. In a short time they had devoured all the green herbs which could ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... Magistrate," Miss Belcher retorted, "there's naught to hinder your trotting home to bed if you're timorous. Jim's on his way to the moor by this time with the rest of the horses: 'twas at his starting the dogs gave tongue just now, and I'll have to teach them better manners. As for the roan, if he's hurt or Rosewarne happens on ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... they must be united; If we have Strength, it must be all exerted; If we have Courage it must be inflamed, And every Art and Stratagem be practis'd: We've more to do than fright a Pigeon Roost, Or start a timorous Flock of running Deer; Yes, we've a strong, a warlike stubborn Foe, Unus'd to be repuls'd and quit the Field, Nay, flush'd with Victories and long Success, Their Numbers, Strength, and Courage all renown'd, 'Tis little of them that you see or know. ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... sacrilegious feet carry me a little way within that violated enclosure. But it was only a very tiny raid we made. We stood quietly for two or three minutes, just feeling the place, then scurried hastily away like two timorous hares; and as I have since lost a much prized little fern-leaf plucked within the enclosure, I think Mr. Tennyson should agree that this intrusive American has been quite severely enough punished, and that much ought to be forgiven one who has loved ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... property of this prayer of the heart is to give a strong faith. Mine was without limits, as was also my resignation to God, and my confidence in Him—my love of His will, and of the order of His providence over me. I was very timorous before, but now feared nothing. It is in such a case that one feels the efficacy of these words, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light" ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... not that angling is an art: is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? a trout that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk you have named, and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold; and yet I doubt not to catch a brace or two to-morrow for a friend's breakfast. Doubt not, therefore, sir, but that angling is an art, and an art worth your learning. The question is rather, whether you be capable of learning it? for angling is somewhat ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... Thing, and often turn into useful Tools the seeming Obstacles to their Ambition. The most resolute Unbeliever, if he is a good Hypocrite, may pretend to as much Superstition and hold Fear, as the most timorous Bigot can be really possess'd with; and the First often gains his Point by making use of the Religion of others, where the Latter is undone by being hamper'd ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... are quite right. No doubt the best course of action is not to fight; but if a man does find it necessary to do so, surely the wisest plan is to get it over at once (as the dentist suggested to his timorous patient), and to do it in the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... This timorous mood of the emigrants was doubly unfortunate, as it exposed them to real danger. Assume, in the presence of Indians a bold bearing, self-confident yet vigilant, and you will find them tolerably safe neighbors. But your safety depends on the respect and fear you are able to inspire. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... first learned to know at Wallingford. The great barons who thronged round him in his court had all been rebels; the younger among them had never known what order, government, or loyalty meant. The Church was hesitating and timorous. To the people he was an utter stranger, unable even to speak their tongue. But from the first Henry took his place as absolute master and leader. "A strict regard to justice was apparent in him, and at the very outset he bore the appearance ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... that was so kind To Teras' hair, and comb'd it down with wind, Still as it, comet-like, brake from her brain, Would needs have Teras gone, and did refrain To blow it down: which, staring[111] up, dismay'd The timorous feast; and she no longer stay'd; But, bowing to the bridegroom and the bride, Did, like a shooting exhalation, glide Out of their sights: the turning of her back Made them all shriek, it look'd so ghastly black. 490 O hapless Hero! that most ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... instances of fertility of fancy, and accurate description of real life, I appeal to No. 19, a man who wanders from one profession to another, with most plausible reasons for every change. No. 34, female fastidiousness and timorous refinement. No. 82, a Virtuoso who has collected curiosities. No. 88[646], petty modes of entertaining a company, and conciliating kindness. No. 182, fortune-hunting. No. 194-195, a tutor's account of the follies of his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... nearly two hundred prisoners, two guns and a complete laager, carried despondency into the Boer Headquarters, so recently alarmed at the rebuff of Talana. Moreover, the battle did more than clear Yule's rear; it also safeguarded his front, by persuading Erasmus, already timorous upon Impati, to cling to his mountain, at a time when Yule's exhausted battalions were in no condition to resist the attack of ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... strong counteracting force which will enable the better cause to maintain a respectable fight. I expect that Francis Egerton's election will produce indirectly very important consequences, and will be the means of proving to moderate, doubting, timorous politicians that they need not shrink from avowing whatever Conservative sentiments they really do entertain. Much remains to be done, many difficulties to be surmounted, before anything like security can be felt, but undoubtedly the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... had but my father's gun, his good old gun, now!" would Hector say, as he eyed the timorous flocks as they rose and fell upon the lake; "but these foolish birds are so shy, that they are away before ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... quick shyness, have turned away from his momentary notice, as in answer to the rustling of silk, or stirred by sympathetic consciousness of women's noiseless presence, he has raised his face from a volume of reports, and seen two or three timorous girls peering through the golden haze of a London morning, into the library of his Inn? What man, thus drawn away for thirty seconds from prosaic toil, has not in that half minute remembered the faces ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... of service. The General, profiting by the precepts of his erstwhile companions in arms, had never soiled his military escutcheon by labor, nor had he ever risen to the higher planes of criminality. Rather as a mediocre pickpocket and a timorous confidence man had he eked out a meager existence, amply punctuated by seasons of straight bumming and intervals spent as the guest of various inhospitably hospitable states. Now, for the first time in his life, The General faced the possibility of a serious charge; and his terror ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... assistance leave, depart help, succor leave, abandon answer, reply go with, accompany find out, ascertain go before, precede take, appropriate hasten, accelerate shrewd, astute quicken, accelerate breathe, respire speed, celerity busy, industrious hatred, animadversion growing, crescent fearful, timorous grow, increase ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... that she might go down the river and escape. Her women, too, were shrieking through terror, and endeavouring to hide themselves away, thinking that the insurgents would speedily come in and slay them. It might have been a happy thing for this kingdom and people, if the advice of these timorous soldiers had been followed. Some probably were only too glad at having an excuse for persuading the Queen to leave the kingdom. She, however, refused to move, declaring "that now she was Queen—Queen she would remain." ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... surpassing excellence of our guest as an artistical performer, one is really at a loss to say in what line of character he has excelled the most. The Titanic grandeur of Lear, the human debasement of Werner, the frank vivacity of Henry V, the gloomy and timorous guilt of King John, or that—his last—personation of Macbeth, in which it seemed to me that he conveyed a more correct notion of what Shakespeare designed than I can recollect to have read in the most profound of the German critics; ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... were too timorous to check her, and Flora's ceased in the delight of hearing that last wail confess the thought of Hilary. Constance strove with tender energy for place and voice: "Nan, dearie, Nan! But listen to Flora, Nan. See, Nan, I haven't opened Steve's letter ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... not! Dost fear I could not protect thee from harm? Believe me, thou hast a wondrous different brother now from the cowed and timorous lad who went forth from these doors but six short months back. Fear not, my sister; look up, and let me see thy face. I would learn how it has fared with thee since we parted that night on this very spot, though it ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... many fools. It is as easy way unto a duchess As to a hatted dame, if her love answer: But that by timorous honours, pale respects, Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways Hard ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... I interrupted and, turning aside pettishly, began to haul my cockboat down to the water, "since you choose to treat me like a baby of six, I suppose it's no wonder you take Plinny for a timorous old fool." ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... glances, when suddenly the door burst open, and Roque rushed in with visible emotion. The faithful Argus came to announce the near approach of Monteblanco and his guest, Don Rodrigo. Gomez Arias, however, could not believe the danger to be so imminent, making due allowance for the valet's timorous disposition; but the good duenna, who had been unpleasantly disturbed at her devotions, now came forward to confirm the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... captain quietly. "Yes, that's it, Mr Anderson—our prize, and a beautiful morning for her to make her start for the West Indies. Bless that straightforward, timorous, modest American skipper! Do you know, Mr Anderson, I am strongly of opinion that he commands that craft and that he will find his way through some of the muddy creeks and channels of the mangrove forest back to where she will be waiting for him. Well, master, what do you think?" he continued, ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Where at what fowl we please our hawk shall fly: Nor will we spare To hunt the crafty fox or timorous hare; But let our hounds run loose In any ground they'll choose; The buck shall fall, The stag, and all. Our pleasures must from their own warrants be, For to my Muse, if not to me, I'm sure all game is free: Heaven, earth, are all but parts of ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... have been hard for Reuben to say just why he found the Perdu so attractive. He might have said it was the fishing; for sometimes, though not often, he would cast a timorous hook into its depths and tremble lest he should lure from the pallid waters some portentous and dreadful prey. He never captured, however, anything more terrifying than catfish; but these were clad in no small measure of mystery, for the white waters of the Perdu had bleached their ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... they shall find it broken. But wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate at all, had need both choose well those whom he employeth, and change them often; for new are more timorous and less subtle. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it behooveth him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other. As if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... sad, had, dark presentiments. In veiled words he announced catastrophes. His timorous phrases came through the flowers, and irritated M. Schmoll, who began to grumble and to prophesy. He explained that Christian nations were incapable, alone and by themselves, of throwing off barbarism, and that without the Jews ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... had made up her mind about me, and in no timorous or uncertain terms had set down her reasons for her opinion. Fifteen years were to pass before any other critic—except Mr. Howells, I think—was to reutter that daring opinion and print it. Right or wrong, it was a brave position for that little analyser to take. She never ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... inclination for domestic life which always appeared in the man, made it matter for surprise that he had waited so long before taking another wife. It would not have occurred to most of those who knew him that his extreme devotion to women made him shy, diffident, all but timorous in their presence. But Piers Otway, for all his mental disturbance at this moment, remarked the singular deference, the tone and look of admiring gentleness, with which Mr. Jacks turned to his wife as he ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... having one's head broken with a brickbat, were beginning to question their consciences very closely as to whether it was not a duty they owed to their families to stay at home on Sunday evening. These timorous persons, however, were in a small minority, and the generality of Mr. Tryan's friends and hearers rather exulted in an opportunity of braving insult for the sake of a preacher to whom they were attached on personal as well as ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... relenting heart. "En voiture, Messieurs, Mesdames," sings the Doctor; and on we go again at a good round pace, for black care follows hard after us, and discretion prevails not a little over valour in some timorous spirits of the party. At any moment we may meet the sergeant, who will send us back. At any moment we may encounter a flying shell, which will send us somewhere farther ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... explain the motives that led to it? She was sure he had never felt like that; and as she evaded his questions the something within her demanding life and expression grew stronger and more rebellious, more contemptuous of the fear-precepts congenial to a nature timorous ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the eyes of Dante from her: he looks for the sequel: she thinks he looks severely: she says: 'Galeotto is the name of the book,' fancying by this timorous little flight she has drawn him far enough from the nest of her young loves. No, the eagle beak of Dante and his piercing eyes are ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... on the verge of sunrise. There was the grayish-blue light in the west, the top of a long range of forest was sharply outlined against it, and a timorous darkness was hurrying out of the zenith. In the east a sad golden radiance was stealing up and driving back the mystery of the night, and that weird loneliness of an arctic world. The city was hardly waking as yet, but straight silver columns of smoke rolled ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and do not wander far from their burrows; if frightened, they rush to them with a most awkward gait. Except when running down hill, they cannot move very fast, apparently from the lateral position of their legs. They are not at all timorous: when attentively watching any one, they curl their tails, and, raising themselves on their front legs, nod their heads vertically, with a quick movement, and try to look very fierce; but in reality they are ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... in Malay who is not a thorough alien to timorous feelings would do well to never leave his comfortable post in the railway carriage between one place and another or at least to keep within a safe distance of the forest, for although its perils have been greatly exaggerated there are some, all the same, that require ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... must venture,' said Christian to Timorous and Mistrust. 'Whatever you may do I must venture, even if the lions you speak of should pull me to pieces. I, for one, shall never go back. To go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death and everlasting life beyond it. I will yet go ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... moral law is man's happiness alone. Whatever a positive religion contains beyond the moral law is superstition, which puts emphasis on worthless trivialities. The true religion occupies the happy mean between miserable unfaith, on the one hand, and timorous superstition, wild fanaticism, and pietistical zeal on the other. In proclaiming the sovereignty of reason in the sphere of religion as well as elsewhere, we are only openly demanding what our opponents have tacitly acknowledged ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... his wild imposture would generate, and he recoiled from his task, not, because there remained lurking in his breast some few sparks of honesty, but because he wanted courage; he was a scoundrel, but a timorous one, and always in dread of the penitentiary. With him, Mormonism was a mere money speculation, and he resolved to shelter himself behind some fool who might bear the whole odium, while he would reap a golden harvest, and quietly retire before the coming of a storm. But, as is often the ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Hoegni's heart should be brought; but his servants, fearing to lay hands on such a grim warrior, slew the cowardly scullion Hialli. The trembling heart of this poor wretch called forth contemptuous words from Gunnar, who declared that such a timorous organ could never have belonged to his fearless brother. Atli again issued angry commands, and this time the unquivering heart of Hoegni was produced, whereupon Gunnar, turning to the monarch, solemnly swore ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... He grew more timorous in the dark. His own breathing startled him. He revolved a thousand plans of escape; but how was it possible to climb to the pit-mouth without help, and in total darkness? The door, too, would probably ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Cassel. They assured me that every night a noise of drums was heard there, whence the mariners fancied that it was the residence of Degial. I determined to visit this wonderful place, and in my way thither saw fishes of 100 and 200 cubits long, that occasion more fear than hurt; for they are so timorous, that they will fly upon the rattling of two sticks or boards. I saw likewise other fish about a cubit in length, that had heads ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... fills the air with dust and noise and alarms the credulous. Perhaps it may be wise to counteract this with a little quiet promotion of ideas of safety and prosperity, based on order and law. It may be well to calm the nerves of the timorous and it can do no harm to set in motion a counter wave of horror and repulsion against those who are planning to lead the world back to conditions of tribal savagery. Educational work is always beneficent. Let us have much of that but no panic. The power of truth and reason ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... perplexities continually increased, and we were forced again to fight our way back to our quarters. In this sally, which took place on a Thursday, Sandoval and others of our cavalry acted with great bravery; but those who came with Narvaez, not having been accustomed to such service, were timorous in comparison with our veterans. The number and fury of our enemies increased daily, while our force was diminished by each successive attack, and from our wounds we were become less able for resistance. Our powder was almost entirely expended; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... aside, As conscious of my look she stept— Then suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... battle the dastardly and timorous soldier throws away his shield on the first appearance of an enemy, and runs as fast as he can, and on that account loses his life sometimes, though he has never received even one wound, when he who stands his ground has nothing of the sort happen to him, so ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... zymotic diseases contracted in these tenements, yet not even a whisper was heard, not the remotest suggestion that the men of wealth who thus deliberately profited from disease and death, were criminally culpable, although faint and timorous opinions were advanced that they might ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... new feeling it is for me to have someone who is to like my verses or I shall not ever like them after! So far differently was I circumstanced of old, that I used rather to go about for a subject of offence to people; writing ugly things in order to warn the ungenial and timorous off my grounds at once. I shall never do so again at least! As it is, I will bring all I dare, in as great quantities as I can—if not next time, after then—certainly. I must make an end, print this Autumn my last four 'Bells,' Lyrics, Romances, 'The ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... laissez-faire for the purposes of trade. France envisages the complete ruin of German industry and commerce, and believes that Foch is the man to do it. At this the Italians smile quietly and counsel the timorous Germans not to despair. Rome chooses to hold to the thesis that a prosperous Italy depends on a prosperous Germany, and no outsider is qualified to dispute such a point of view. Somehow Italy manages to suggest a similar thought to England. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... was crossing the fields to where I could see the full front of my master's mansion, and, looking with a timorous joy, saw—a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... days of the war the boy scouts of England, then on school holiday, did marvellous work. Boys of fourteen made repeated trips across the Channel, bringing back from France children, invalids, timorous women. They volunteered in the hospitals, ran errands, carried messages, were as useful as only willing boys can be. They did scout service, too, guarding the railway lines and assisting in watching the Channel coast; but with the end of the holiday most ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... very moment at which they were being renewed; the massacre continuing here and there in France, at one time with the secret connivance and at another notwithstanding the publicly-given word of the king and the queen-mother; all this policy, at one and the same time violent and timorous, incoherent and stubborn, produced amongst the Protestants two contrary effects: some grew frightened, others angry. At court, under the direct influence of the king and his surroundings, "submission to the powers that be" prevailed; many fled; others, without ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I am forced to own {my passion}; and with timorous prayers, to entreat thy aid. Thou alone canst save, thou destroy, one who loves thee. Choose which thou wilt do. She is not thy enemy who begs this; but one who, though most nearly connected with thee, desires to be still more closely connected, and to be united to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... dead, so pale was her beautiful face; and the coils of her soft hair were trailing in the surging water. But she was not dead, and, placed in the warm cabin of the delivered ship, soon opened her great, timorous eyes. ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... inconstant in everything but what fear constrain them to keep; crafty, timorous, quick of apprehension, ingenious enough in their own works, as may testify their weirs in which they take their fish, which are certain enclosures made of reeds and framed in the fashion of a labyrinth or maze set a fathom deep in the water with divers chambers ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... must put away these timorous fears, or else you must make up your mind to remain under the ban for good; and, remember, your mother's happiness is at stake equally with yours—I could almost say her life. Do you suppose I would advise you for danger? You used to say there was some place, a mile or two from this, where ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... intimate with him. He is a man of literature, a very studious man, a man of great diligence. He gets his living by study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his life. A man that I never knew to be otherwise than peaceable, and a man that I take to be rather timorous.—Q. Was he addicted to pick up women in the streets?—Dr. J. I never knew that he was.—Q. How is he as to eyesight?—Dr. J. He does not see me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he could be capable of assaulting any body in the street, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... causes the traveller here to be ever on the qui-vive, the precaution being highly necessary, to prevent surprise. The least movement in a coppice excites apprehension, and fills the soul of both the resolute and the timorous with anticipations of danger. Nor are these fears groundless, for the treacherous Indian crawls stealthily to the attack, and, without a moment's warning, two or three of a party may fall to the earth, pierced by rifle-balls, or rearing horses may throw the riders, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... her closely. She had met her once at Babington House, when she was still Elizabeth Westley, but had thought little or nothing of her since. She was a pale little creature, fair-haired and timorous, and had now a hunted look of misery in her eyes that was very piteous to see. It was plain they had done right in coming: this woman would be of ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... What can I have or hold of the bounteous boon I crave— I, with the coarse stubbed hands, the dull and narrow eyes, The low-browed leer of the brutal, base-born slave? What can I know of Love? I, with my ape-like face, Frighting the tender trust of the timorous, shrinking maid, Who, drawn by my deep soul's spell, half-yields to the soul's embrace Then looks on its hideous mask and trembles ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... take a better spirit; Be not so timorous to rehearse your wrongs: I say, your husband haunts bad company, Swaggerers, cheaters, wanton courtesans; There he defiles his body, stains his soul, Consumes his wealth, undoes himself and you In danger of diseases, whose vile names Are not for any ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... lost not Heav'n; he seemd 110 For dignity compos'd and high exploit: But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest Counsels: for his thoughts were low; To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas'd the eare, And with perswasive accent thus began. I should be much for open Warr, O Peers, As not behind in hate; if what was urg'd 120 Main reason to perswade immediate Warr, Did not disswade me most, and seem ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... at Gottin flamed greatly abroad through the timorous imaginations of mankind, that Year; and in the Newspapers are many details of it. And, besides the important general fact, there is still one little point worth special mention: namely, that old Field-marshal Katte (Father of poor Lieutenant Katte whom we knew) was of it; and perhaps ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Far off in the sea is Marlena, A land of shades and streams, A land of many delights. Dark and bold, thy shores, Marlena; But green, and timorous, thy soft knolls, Crouching behind the woodlands. All shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs, Like eyes in the earth looking at you. How charming thy haunts Marlena!— Oh, the waters that flow through Onimoo: Oh, the leaves that rustle through Ponoo: Oh, the roses that blossom in Tarma: Come, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... which he grasps all his subjects—the measured fervour of his style—the precision and vivacity of his shorter sentences—the grand swell and sonorousness of his longer; on his frequent monotony—his sesguipedalia verba—the "timorous meaning" which sometimes lurks under his "boldest words;" or on the deep chiaroscuro which discolours all his pictures of man, nature, society, and human life. We have now only to speak of his poetry. That is, unfortunately, small in amount, although its quality is so excellent ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... way into the circle, it shrank back as though timorous, then wavered. From the circle came a woman's voice—anxious, eager, straining with ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... irreconcilable with themselves. Look at the man in one light, and he shall seem wise, penetrating, discreet, and brave; behold him in another point of view, and you see a creature all over folly and indiscretion, weak and timorous as cowardice and indiscretion can make him. A man shall appear gentle, courteous, and benevolent to all mankind; follow him into his own house, maybe you see a tyrant morose and savage to all whose happiness depends upon his kindness. A third, in his general ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... exit proved all that the most timorous could have desired. Peter approached it by an elusive detour; Varney appeared promptly at the sound of his three honks; and the rendezvous was effected in a black darkness which they seemed to have entirely to themselves. Not a hand was raised ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... near to the end of the jungle at which the hunters were stationed, and until they were huddled together so close that it could no longer contain them, that they unwillingly abandoned it. The most timorous, the rabbit and the hare, and all the smaller tribes, first broke cover, and were allowed to pass unnoticed; but they were soon followed by the whole mass, who, as if by agreement among themselves, had determined at once to decide ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... round on me in that way for, Thorpe—when I was here last?" He put the question with bravery enough, but at sight of the other's unresponsive face grew suddenly timorous aud explanatory. "No man was ever more astounded in the world than I was. To this day I'm as unable to account for it as a babe unborn. What conceivable thing had I done ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... The trustless, timorous lease of human life Warns me to hedge in my diplomacy. The sooner, then, the safer! Ay, this eve, This very night, will I take steps to rid My morrows of the weird contingencies That vision round ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavor to become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in the present time, where the faults and errors of humanity, checked by the imperfect, timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those who have stopped at no crime. It is a dreadful part of the example, that infernal malevolence has had pious apologists, who read their lectures on frailties in favor of crimes,—who abandon the weak, and court the friendship of the wicked. To root out these ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the pane Makes timorous Fancy smile: Then let me hear that tender strain; Blithe charmer, ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... extends its melancholy influence. Before it is a small stiff avenue of trimmed live-oaks which conducts you to a grotesque little shrine beneath the staircase ascending to the church. Just here, if you are apt to grow timorous at twilight, you may take a very pretty fright; for as you draw near you catch behind the grating of the shrine the startling semblance of a gaunt and livid monk. A sickly lamplight plays down upon his face, and he stares at you from cavernous eyes ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... gleam, but had a subdued colour like dead gold. The foam of a lesser wave ran up and touched their feet submissively. Three young girls in pink clustered together; one crouched with her back to the sea and glanced over her timorous shoulder. Another lesser wave ran up and left a fringe of foam before them. I looked for a moment out to sea and saw the smack roll heavily, the big wave was coming. By now the bathers had gathered confidence, and stepped, a little ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... stood gazing as though they would read the whole truth in each other's eyes. She was all eager, yet timorous; he was resolved; yet now, when the great moment had come, as it were, like a stammerer fearing the sound of his own voice. There was so much to say ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... them came a confused, terrifying noise of panting breaths and trampling feet. It came sweeping down the broad trail. There were grunting cries, also; and Grom understood at once that a herd of pig-tapirs—heavy-footed, timorous beasts, as tall as heifers—were sweeping down upon them in mad flight before ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the room. But had I been minded to have played the coward, I could have escaped, and kept out of his hands. For when I was come to my friend's house, there was whispering that that day I should be taken, for there was a warrant out to take me; which when my friend heard, he being somewhat timorous, questioned whether we had best have our meeting or not; and whether it might not be better for me to depart, lest they should take me and have me before the justice, and after that send me to prison, for he knew better than I what spirit they were ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his bride to go with him to the pastor, to get the certificate. Abashed, Freneli tried to decline, under the pretext that she did not know him, that it was unnecessary, and so on. But she went none the less, and no longer timorous, like a thief in the night, but as well becomes a happy woman at the side of an honest man. Freneli knew how to take herself ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... "quok—quok—quoo," are more to be relied upon as ready means of identification than any striking difference in plumage; the white-headed, the pheasant-tail, the gorgeous "superb," the tranquil dove, Ewing's fruit pigeon—most timorous of the order—are regular patrons, and each of the family has the distinctive demeanour and note. All save the allied—which is too full of assurance and fruit to be disconcerted by the presence of man—may flutter into the jungle, and then, as the momentary disturbance subsides, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... had not only provided the first shelters for man against the inclemency of the weather, but had also furnished him with places of secure refuge against the violence of his fellow-man. As sure as the rabbit runs to its hole on the sight of the sportsman, so did the oppressed and timorous when the slayer ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... After a couple of weeks or so it would be different. Who could tell he had not returned overland from some port beyond the limits of the Republic? The existence of the treasure confused his thoughts with a peculiar sort of anxiety, as though his life had become bound up with it. It rendered him timorous for a moment before that enigmatic, lighted door. Devil take the fellow! He did not want to see him. There would be nothing to learn from his face, known or unknown. He was a fool to waste his time ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Nagoo, the snake-charmer, heard that there was a large one in Beharilal's garden, he thought he might do good business by capturing it for the Jadoo-walla Saheb, and at the same time demanding a reward from the timorous Bunia for ridding him of such a dangerous neighbour. With this intent he repaired to the garden with all the apparatus of his art, his flat snake baskets, his mongoose and his crooked pipe. Having reconnoitred the ground, he commenced operations by sitting down on his hams and producing ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... had as a public servant—for we may fairly regard in that light a man who wields so large a portion of our common estate. He was one of the most timid of men. He was even timorous. His timidity was constitutional and physical. He would take a great deal of trouble to avoid crossing a temporary bridge or scaffolding, though assured by an engineer that it was strong enough to bear ten elephants. Nor can it be said that he was morally brave. Year after year he saw a gang ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... to see the children toss the pennies from hand to hand, blowing to cool them; the riotous yet half-timorous scramble for them, and burnt fingers thrust into hot, blithe mouths. And when he saw a fat little lad of five crowded out of the way by his elders, he stepped down with a quick word of sympathy, put a half-dozen pennies in the child's pocket, snatched him up and kissed him, and then returned ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... offered. Essex could not overcome his mortification. He evinced it in a puerile manner by omitting all mention of the capture of Fayal from his official reports. Monson, who was with the expedition, expresses an opinion that if Essex, being 'by nature timorous and flexible, had not feared how it would be taken in England, Sir Walter Ralegh would have smarted for it.' In appearance the Earl ultimately allowed himself to be pacified by a solemn discussion of Ralegh's conduct, and a severe censure voted by a majority ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... he wandered disconsolately about the rooms, walked to the window, puckering up his lips, heaved deep sighs, and almost fell to whimpering at last. He was always full of forebodings, was afraid of something unexpected and inevitable; he had become timorous; he began to pay great attention to ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... some very timorous guests," I observed. "Or, perhaps, you have had experiences here which have tended to alarm you. The house is so large and imposing for the quarter it is in I can readily imagine it to ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
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