"Bashful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Beaucaire, somewhat unsteadily, as he stood, swaying a little, with one hand on the coach-door, the other pressed hard on his side, "he only oversee'; he is jus' a little bashful, sometime'. He is a great man, but he ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... entrails are lava— Or (you know my penchant for original types) of the upas in Java. In the curve of her sensitive nose was a singular species of dimple, Where the flush was the mark of an angel's creased kiss—if it wasn't a pimple. Now I'm none of your bashful John Bulls who don't know a pilau from a puggaree Nor a chili, by George, from a chopstick. So, sir, I marched into her snuggery, And proposed a light supper by way of a finish. I treated her, Bill, To six entrees of ortolans, sprats, ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and got into his buggy. At first she was very silent, and Lawrence, who was a bashful lad at the best of times, felt tongue-tied and uncomfortable. But presently Bessy, pitying his evident embarrassment, began to talk to him. She could talk well, and Lawrence found himself entering easily into the spirit of her piquant speeches. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... placed his hand to sense the child's quickening. "He'll be of help on the farm, so strong as he is," he remarked. Then, tugging his hat down tight, Aaron went outdoors, bashful ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... herself on Sunday night, Joe had detained her for a moment under the dooryard trees—had kissed her. Sally was like a young tiger, tamed, petted, innocuous, whose puzzled lips have for the first time tasted blood. Every fibre in her being cried for Joe, his bashful words were her wisdom, his nearness her very ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... much-battered life, lived quietly near Norwich, remembering his past losses and sequestrations under the Long Parliament rather than suffering anything more of the kind. Peter Heylin was in similar circumstances in Oxfordshire, and by no means bashful. Jeremy Taylor alternated between the Earl of Carbery's seat, called "the Golden Grove," in Caernarvonshire, near which he taught a school, and the society of his friend John Evelyn, in London or at Sayes Court in Surrey,—tending on the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... moment the punching was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, lest he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful with his sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationalists, the photograph album. All the dejected young men made for it at once, ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... Joan was richer in this matter, for, as time went on, she earned a second, and then a third, and so on, and we gave them to her. First and last she had as many as half a dozen. Several of these she never lost. Peasant-girls are bashful naturally; but she surpassed the rule so far, and colored so easily, and was so easily embarrassed in the presence of strangers, that we nicknamed her the Bashful. We were all patriots, but she was called the Patriot, because our warmest feeling for ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... bashful in her manners, every look which fell from her eyes—every smile which wreathed her lips, denoted the chaste purity of her soul. With all her readiness to oblige—with all her anxiety to do her duty as she ought, she frequently incurred the anger of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... conceiving evil. To the brutish coarseness and fiendish malignity of this man, her gentleness appears only a contemptible weakness; her purity of affection, which saw "Othello's visage in his mind," only a perversion of taste; her bashful modesty, only a cloak for evil propensities; so he represents them with all the force of language and self-conviction, and we are obliged to listen to him. He rips her to pieces before us—he would have bedeviled an angel! yet such is the unrivalled, though passive delicacy of the delineation, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... much younger than even the twenty-five Mike had guessed at. She seemed to be more like a somewhat bashful teen-ager who had been educated in a convent. "I was what they call an 'exceptional child.' My mother died when I was seven, and Dad ... well, he just didn't know what to do with a baby girl, I guess. He was a kind man, and I think he really loved me, but he just didn't know what to do with ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... eagerly forward, and crowded around Miss Mercer as she descended from the buggy, smiling pleasantly at the bashful Tom Pratt, who did his best to help her in her descent. And not the least eager, by any means, was Tom Pratt's mother, whose early indifference to the interest of these good Samaritans in her misfortunes seemed ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... canst forsake me, then, To spare thyself a little bashful pain? Paolo, dost thou know what 'tis for me, A woman—nay, a dame of highest rank— To lose my purity? to walk a path Whose slightest slip may fill my ear with sounds That hiss me out to infamy and death? Have I no secret pangs, no self-respect, No husband's ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... cross-roads store nigh us, clerked in Darley before he went in on his own hook out here, an' I've heard 'im tell of a lot o' pranks that they had over thar. He said thar was an old bachelor that, kept a dry-goods store who never had had much to do with women. He was bashful-like, but thar was one young woman that he had his eye on, an' now an' then he'd spruce up an' go to see 'er or take 'er out to meetin', but Jeff said he was too weak-kneed to pop the question, an' the gal went off on a visit to Alabama and got married. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Nay more—the boy was bashful—I allow it. —You but a slave.—But if she had been prov'd Ever so plainly a relation, why Needed he marry her? and why not rather Give her, according to the law, a portion, And let her seek some other for a husband? Why did he rather bring a ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... know what powers of persuasion Bunch brought to bear on Alice and Uncle William, but I do know that there was a hurried wedding ceremony, and that a certain blushing bride and bashful groom and a delighted old Uncle who answered roll call when you yelled Bill Grey took passage that next Wednesday with ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... like a bashful woman's. He thought Blecker had divined his secret, would haul it out roughly in another moment. If this slang-talking Yankee should take little Lizzy's name into his mouth! But the Doctor was silent, even looked away until the heat ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... well-known that the respectable women of Greece, especially the virgins, were practically kept under lock and key in the part of the house known as the gynaikonitis. This resulted in making them shy and bashful—but not coy, if we may judge from the mirror of life known as literature. Ramdohr observes, pertinently ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... it would be useless to press my correction, and therefore changed the subject by asking if her father had never tried to teach her English. Immediately she answered, with a somewhat bashful air— ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Chiefs delight to hear The kindred virtues of a British Peer? How will thy deeds enchant, with gentle sway, The Patriot sons of Massachuset's Bay? For all your ardor fires the illustrious train, In Council bold, but bashful on the plain: How will their grateful bosoms love the verse, Whose honest lines such great exploits rehearse? I see their hands prepare the verdant bough, I feel their laurel wreaths surround my brow; While that long-honour'd strain, whose magic charms So oft has called ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe
... the face of an old college friend which caught his eye, and he would almost shout for joy to see it smiling and alive, when he had thought it hidden under the daisies. Sometimes it was a rosy matron whom he had last seen as a bashful bride. And these meetings were so frequent that Elsie had got quite used to his starts and exclamations before they had gone ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... squire. "Nonsense! No but, lad. Butter—ay, and cream it shall be. Let him turn ye off. There's a home at Greenwood for ye, if he does—and something better than that too. Sixteen, ye dog! Sweet sixteen, rosy sixteen, bashful sixteen, glowing sixteen, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... so happened that among Anna Pavlovna's maids there was one very pretty girl with clear soft eyes and refined features, Malanya by name, an modest intelligent creature. She took his fancy at first sight, and he fell in love with her: he fell in love with her timid movements, her bashful answers, her gentle voice and gentle smile; every day she seemed sweeter to him. And she became devoted to Ivan Petrovitch with all the strength of her soul, as none but Russian girls can be devoted—and she gave herself to ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... that as the same Man may be both Modest and Assured, so it is also possible for the same Person to be both Impudent and Bashful. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... somewhat taller than Fred, but did not seem to be as strong as he. Evidently the lad had starved a good deal on the voyage, for he looked haggard and wan. Also he was dressed quite poorly. The visit to the minister had, no doubt, been a great strain on him. He was timid and bashful, and as the Governor addressed him, his cheeks ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... hang back so: Of an old tried lover, thou art the most bashful fellow! [Pulling ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... bit," Phyllis denied. "She's a thousand times nicer. She is so quiet when there are people around that it looks as though she were bashful, but she really isn't a bit. She just never says anything unless it's worth saying, and I wish you could see her look at me when I ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... the 22d of January, 1675, that Turenne was at last enabled to leave Elsass reconquered. "There is no longer in France an enemy that is not a prisoner," he wrote to the king, whose thanks embarrassed him. "Everybody has remarked that M. de Turenne is a little more bashful than he was ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fond and bashful too, (Sing hey down ho, the sea rolls aye.) He sigh'd and knew not what to do; (Life like an arrow flies away.) Then whispering low his cherish'd wish, The Rose-bud trembled on her bush, While redder grew her maiden blush; (Ruddy eve ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... drawing the bashful youth into Circe's circle!" called Travers, now thoroughly elated. A forest of hands went up. Captain Webb and his bosom comrade, Captain Saunders, who, for diplomatic reasons had remained neutral, exchanged grins. "You see," Travers said, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... my dear boy," cried Sir Henry enthusiastically. "But there will be brighter days yet. Come along and join Adela; she will be delighted to have you with her again. Come along! Why do you hang back? Why, Hil, my boy, you have not grown bashful?" ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... now soothingly to stroke the great, rough hand he held; but at once Elizabeth broke into bashful laughter, and he ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... murmured. "She did n't even stop a minute. Maybe she's sort of bashful, now. I should n't wonder ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... literature instead of life. The painter is still under the influence of idyllic literature, which has always expressed the imagination of the cultivated and town-bred, rather than the truth of rustic life. Idyllic ploughmen are jocund when they drive their team afield; idyllic shepherds make bashful love under hawthorn bushes; idyllic villagers dance in the chequered shade, and refresh themselves, not immoderately, with spicy nut-brown ale. But no one who has seen much of actual ploughmen thinks them jocund; no one who is well acquainted with the English peasantry can pronounce ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... indubitable and overwhelming, exists, that the arboreal and human natures are in substance one. Know that once on a time, as Daphne, the lovely daughter of Peneus, was amusing herself with a bow and arrows in a forest of Thessaly, she was surprised by a rude musician named Phoebus. Timid and bashful, as most young ladies are, she turned and fled as fast as her [Greek: skelae] could carry her. After running, closely pursued by the eager Delphian, for several miles, and becoming very much fatigued, she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... you," she said, with a quiet smile. "You will see all the county families there, staring at one another's guests; and you will hear a lot of songs, like 'My Pretty Jane' and 'Ever of Thee,' sung by bashful young ladies. At the opening of the proceedings my brother Hugh will make a speech; he is their chairman, and I know precisely what he will say. Hugh always speaks to the point. It will be something like this: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to see you here to-night. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... however, a very long story, which by her actions I judged intimated that she had lost some one, and that I was to supply his place. All I know is that, after weeping a great deal, she finished by taking me in her arms and covering me with kisses. I had before suspected, from the absence of any of that bashful timidity found in a young girl, that she was a widow, and such I learned from her father was ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... who was so bashful, and so lacking in self-confidence that he hardly dared recite before his class in the log schoolhouse, DETERMINED ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... the man, eager to be of service. Then, with a bashful grin, he amended: "I beg ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... she murmured, casting a bashful glance at Mrs. Marteen; then she added with simple gratefulness: "I'm glad you're friends." In her child's fashion she had looked him ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... Cleveland stall seemed chiefly to rely for brilliance on the wit of Harvey Anderson, who was prospering at his college, and the pride of his family. A great talker, and extremely gallant, he was considered a far greater acquisition to a Stoneborough drawing-room than was the silent, bashful Norman May, and rather looked down on his brother Edward, who, having gone steadily through the school, was in the attorney's office, and went on quietly and well, colouring up gratefully whenever one of the May family said ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... beautiful girl two years younger than himself—Harry felt a little more bashful; but the young lady soon entered into an animated ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... had been some while asleep when a voice recalled him from oblivion. "Sir," it was saying; and looking round, he saw Mr. Killian's daughter, terrified by her boldness, and making bashful signals from the shore. She was a plain, honest lass, healthy and happy and good, and with that sort of beauty that comes of happiness and health. But her confusion lent her for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lambs and kids, which were frisking about them. Ayd knew the women, who belonged to his own tribe of Mezeine. Their husbands were fishermen, and were then at the sea-shore. They brought us some milk, and I bought a kid of them, which we intended to dress in the evening. The women were not at all bashful; I freely talked and laughed with them, but they remained at several yards distance from me. Ayd shook them by the hand, and kissed the children; but Hamd, who did not know them, kept at the same distance as myself. Higher up in the Wady is a well ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... rolled, and his face was contracted into wrinkles and his body was covered with sweat; and yet he could not raise it. And when after having striven, the illustrious Bhima failed in raising the tail, he approached the side of the monkey, and stood with a bashful countenance. And bowing down, Kunti's son, with joined hands, spake these words, 'Relent thou, O foremost of monkeys; and forgive me for my harsh words. Art thou a Siddha, or a god, or a Gandharva, or a Guhyaka? I ask thee out of curiosity. Tell me who thou art that hast assumed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... on the young woman's arm; and though Lucille was naturally so bashful that even her mother would laughingly reproach her for the excess of a maiden virtue, she felt not the least pang of shame, as she found herself thus suddenly walking through the streets of Malines along ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fast," said Sally smiling. "I am rather bashful you see, and worse than that, I was afraid the doctor would say like the others, that it was the nerve and I would have to go blind, or that some dreadful operation would be necessary; but after I had seen him and found out how kind and pleasant he was, and that ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... Captain Donnithorne, laughing. "Why, she looks as quiet as a mouse. There's something rather striking about her, though. I positively felt quite bashful the first time I saw her—she was sitting stooping over her sewing in the sunshine outside the house, when I rode up and called out, without noticing that she was a stranger, 'Is Martin Poyser at home?' I declare, when she got up and looked at me and just said, 'He's in the house, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... that simply sought renown, By holding out to tire each other down; The swain mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter tittered round the place; The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, The matron's glance, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... its head at the wooing breeze; And the sun, like a bashful swain, Beamed on it through the waving trees With a passion all in vain,— For my rose laughed in a crimson glee, And hid in the leaves ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... mother-in-law joined me heartily and appeared to me so much changed. I could not but be both surprised and overjoyed at it. We distributed at the house ninety-six dozen loaves of bread every week, but private charities to the bashful poor were much greater. I kept poor boys and girls employed. The Lord gave such blessings to my alms, that I did not find that my family lost anything by it. Before the death of my husband, my mother-in-law told him that I would ruin him with my charities, though he himself was ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... inquire after one man's youngest child, another man's wife, and so forth; and that he was fond of his joke, I discovered from overhearing him ask a stout, fresh-coloured young fellow, with a very pretty bashful-looking girl on his arm, 'when those banns were to be put up?'—an inquiry which made the young fellow more fresh-coloured, and the girl more bashful, and which, strange to say, caused a great many other girls who were standing round, to colour up also, and ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... not let her wait, but put the gown upon the grass and suddenly what did he see? A maiden in white robes, young and beautiful. She gave him her hand and with downcast, bashful eyes said ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... it?—the poor Master of the Shell was sitting in his study, very bashful, and wondering whether he would get a chance of speaking to Daisy during the day at all. She had been spirited away from under his very eyes, in the most truculent manner, by her graceless brother; and it seemed very doubtful whether he ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... are memorable scenes of tenderness, among the best of which are those between Fidelia and Adam Drewe, first in their brief meetings as girl and youth—she with her weak eyes bandaged, but reading him through his voice and bashful deprecation; he yearning to remain with her, but forcing himself away—and then in long years after, when he returns to find her in widowhood and poverty, and to all seeming ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... Quirk," an "open-hearted, pretty-spoken little chap, that any father might be proud of;" but "Sammy" did not please him as well; he was not so frank, or so respectful,—seemed really to be a little sulky. There are some boys who pass off finely before strangers, because they are not in the least bashful, and have a knack of putting on any manner they choose; and Fred was one of these. Willy, a far nobler boy, was naturally timid before his betters; but even if he had been as bold as Fred, his conscience would never have let him say and do ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... Blackler was her partner. Against the wall stood Marsh Belford, a tall, crude, fierce young savage with eyes fixed on Agnes. He was one of her suitors and mad with jealousy of Blackler to whom she was said to be engaged. He was a singular youth, at once bashful and baleful. He could not dance, and for that reason keenly resented Ed's supple grace and easy manners ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... whosoever you are, save me, I implore you, from this man," and with the words she sprang towards the door; but the churlish giant, guessing her intention, intercepted, and bore her back, saying "Keep quiet, gentle lady; have patience, bashful beauty; sit down, sit down; come pet, come." And he made as if to approach her; when, forgetting the hazard of her position, and inspired with returning native courage, with her heart swelling with womanly indignation, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... from tending to extremes; for it is known that unions of dwarfs are fruitful of dwarfs, that giants proceed from the embrace of giants, and that offspring of parents alike irritable, alike passive, alike bashful, etc., inherit the prominent qualities of both to such a degree as to seriously interfere with their prospects in ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... you do brown that old fellow this season I'll knock under. However, don't be bashful about extending Smooth an invitation to breakfast: understand, he is rather fond of a good fish hash, which he thinks it is the profession of your French cook to ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... a very different person from the rough, awkward lad of eight years back. He still had the somewhat loutish figure which, in his mother's family, was the shell of fine-looking men, and he was shy and bashful, but Eton polish had taken away the rude gruffness, and made his manners and bearing gentlemanly. His face was honest and intelligent, and he had a thoroughly good, conscientious disposition; his character stood high, and he was the only Brownlow of ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... She was always shy and dreaded conversations or discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-looking, fat and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured from fatness and laziness, and absurdly bashful. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... rather confused, bashful; shyly, she walked up to her companions who, all with the same movement, turned away from her as if they had not seen her. The Count, dignified, took his wife by the arm and removed her from this ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... utterly fled from her lips as that officer showed himself respectfully on the threshold. Yet she permitted him to usurp the functions of the grinning Caesar, and help her from her horse; albeit she was conscious of exhibiting the awkward timidity of a bashful rustic, until at last, with a stammering, "Thank ye," she actually ran up stairs to hide her glowing face and ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... girl from the ranch. "Think of charging a wildcat with one of these smoke wagons! My! wouldn't it make Bashful Ike's eyes bulge out? I reckon he wouldn't believe we had such hunting here in the East—eh?" and her laugh broke the spell of fear that ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... The bashful look, the rising breast, Alternate spread alarms: The lovely stranger stands confess'd A maid ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... anything but steady. As passengers began to multiply, acquaintances were formed. By and by the stewart came around, and assigned to us our berths. Ship government is monarchic in form. The officers have almost absolute authority, and the passengers, like bashful pupils, do their best to learn the new rules and regulations and adapt their conduct to them, as soon as possible, so that nobody may find occasion for making observations or passing remarks. All these things remind one very much of a first day at ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... mist, and spreading a cheery light over the square, which had looked dismal enough under a grey, rainy sky. I made all the women gather on the outskirts of the square to be measured and photographed. They were very bashful, and I almost pitied them, for the whole male population sat around making cruel remarks about them; indeed, if it had not been for the chiefs explicit orders, they would all have run away. They were not a very pleasant spectacle, on the whole. I was struck by the tired, suffering expression of ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... on his face. "That girl loves you," said the Doctor tersely. For a moment then the Doctor's lips puffed silently at his pipe, until at last with an almost bashful gesture, he cried out abruptly: "Stanton, somehow I feel as though I owed you an apology, or rather, owed your fiancee one. Somehow when you told me that day that your young lady had gone gadding off to Florida and—left you alone with your sickness, why I thought—well, most ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... have heard of, Mrs. Nugent, Newsham's mother; she went the other morning to Lord Chesterfield to beg "he would encourage Mr. Nugent (379) to speak in the house; for that really he was so bashful, she was afraid his abilities would be lost on the world." I don't know who has encouraged him; but so it is, that this modest Irish converted Catholic does talk a prodigious deal of nonsense in behalf ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... though he was received by the old wits with great cordiality, and on a footing of perfect equality, yet the inexpressible air which denotes birth was both pretended to and wanting. This, perhaps, was however owing to the ordinary inexperience of youth; which, if not awkwardly bashful, is generally awkward in its assurance. Whatever its cause, the impression vanished directly he entered into conversation. I do not think I ever encountered a man so brilliantly, yet so easily, witty. He had but little of the studied allusion, the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... King Robert Bruce, Dr. Hette, Clara Fisher, and the American Indians, where it is large. Such likewise is uniformly the case in bashful individuals; this disposition arises in a great measure from a fear ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... the maid of bashful fifteen; Here's to the widow of fifty; Here's to the flaunting, extravagant queen; And here's to the housewife that's thrifty. Chorus: Let the toast pass,— Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... Mr Cheggs (who was bashful before ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy's mother and sisters, to prevent Mr Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and attentions upon him, and left Richard Swiveller to take care of himself. Here was the very ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Clay was very bashful and diffident, and scarcely dared recite before his class at school, but he determined to become an orator. So he committed speeches and recited them in the cornfields, or in the barn with the horse and cows ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... office behind Monsieur Vignevielle's banking-room,—he sitting beside a table, and she, more timid and demure than ever, having just taken a chair by the door,—she said, trying, with a little bashful laugh, to make the matter seem unimportant, and yet with some tremor ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... small table, dispensing luxuries with the manners of a despot and the charity of a child. She had a large vessel of boiling coffee, from which she drew spicy quantities at intervals; and when the troops thronged around eagerly, she rebuked the more forward, and called up some emaciated, bashful fellows, giving them the preference. Every soldier who accepted coffee was obliged to take a religious tract, and she gave them away with a grim satisfaction that was infinitely amusing and interesting. I ventured ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... intending to take passage in her, as there was plenty of room on board. There could be little question, from the description, who this young person was. It was a rather delicate—looking, dark—haired youth, smooth-faced, somewhat shy and bashful in his ways, and evidently excited and nervous. He had apparently been to look about him, and would come back at the last moment, just as the vessel was ready to sail, and in an hour or two be beyond the reach ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... uxoriousness. And this she gather'd from the people's eyes: This too the women who attired her head, To please her, dwelling on his boundless love, Told Enid, and they sadden'd her the more: And day by day she thought to tell Geraint, But could not out of bashful delicacy; While he that watch'd her sadden, was the more Suspicious that her nature had ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... comfort, it falls out to-day, We've a young author and his first-born play; So, standing only on his good behaviour, He's very civil, and entreats your favour. Not but the man has malice, would he show it, But on my conscience he's a bashful poet; You think that strange—no matter, he'll outgrow it. Well, I'm his advocate: by me he prays you (I don't know whether I shall speak to please you), He prays—O bless me! what shall I do now? Hang me if I know what he prays, or how! And 'twas the prettiest ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... back to Lebanon," he continued with a quickening look. "She'll be all right in a jiffy. I've got room for her in my buggy—and room for her in any place that belongs to me," he hastened to reflect with a curious, bashful smile. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... heard this proposal with the deepest anxiety, for she knew that she might, by opposition, determine her husband irrevocably upon following out the enterprise. She stood therefore with a timid and bashful look, strange in a person whose bearing was generally so dauntless, and prudently left it to the uninfluenced mind of Count Robert to form the resolution which ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... find an inconspicuous job around the Academy for a bashful man like Mr. Jess Mee, whom we had the pleasure of encountering ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... of the born combatant. The class that laughed openly at his first tremblingly bashful, and ludicrously inapt answer at quiz, was indelibly ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... had failed utterly to diagnose Thor's case, had not even stumbled on the true cause of that young giant's aloofness. The truth was unknown to anyone, but there was one natural reason for John Thorwald's not mingling with his fellows of the campus-the blond Colossus was inordinately bashful! From his fifteenth year, Thor had seen the seamy side of life, had lived, grown and developed among men. In his wanderings in the Klondike, the wild Northwest, in Panama, his experiences as cabin-boy, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... become one so to speak the message of his King, with visor down, Sir Knight, to the bride whom his Majesty would honor?" she answered half-playfully—yet a little bashful in her first speech in the Grecian tongue which she had striven ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... vote is suffered to pass into a law, were carried in the conversation rooms too, for a priest is here less frequent than a clergyman at London; and those one sees about, are almost all ordinary men, decent and humble in their appearance, of a bashful distant carriage, like the parson of the parish in North Wales, or le cure du village in the South of France; and seems no way related to an Abate of Milan or Turin still less to Monsieur ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the horizontal line, not to the upper surface, and would see the propriety of locating it in the temples at the letters Mo. For its antagonism in Ostentation we should look to the occiput. That species of modesty which produces a bashful and yielding character will be found just below the horizontal line, while that form of modest sentiment which produces the highest refinement rises into connection with love at the upper surface. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... ran upstairs collecting things necessary. Ciccio stood back near the door, and answered all Miss Pinnegar's entreaties to come to the fire with a shake of the head and a slight smile of the lips, bashful and stupid. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... "Them days I'm 'way bashful an' behind on all social plays, an' am plenty awe-struck about the old foiks. I never feels happy a minute where they be. The old lady does her best to make me easy an' free, too. Comes out when I rides up, an' lets down the ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... so many scruples. He was, however, a most respectable man, and one who never dared to look a young girl in her face, he was so bashful. "Well," he often used to say, "God has well done all that he has done, and He is too wise to be angry when we make use of ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... been away in charge of the sportsmen, and, with astonishment, asked how he had contrived to fire away one pound of powder and four of small shot, without bringing home some loons? Hanging his head, and looking uncommonly bashful, he answered, "If you please, sir, we fired it all into a bear!" "Into a bear?" I exclaimed, "what! shoot a bear with No. 4 shot?" "Yes, sir," replied Abbot; "and if it hadn't have been for two or three who were afeard of him, we would have brought him aboard, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... held to be such. It was not Platonic love, by any means, like that for sweet Mary Joyce; and less so on the part of the lass than on that of her lover. John, as always, so at his meetings with Elizabeth Newton, was shy, reserved, and bashful, while she was frank and forward, professing to be deeply in love with him. This had the desired effect upon John Clare, whose easily-touched heart could not withstand the charms and wiles of female enchantment. Having got her lover thus far, Elizabeth began to talk of marriage, at ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... conversation, he should loosen the knot of her under garments, and when she begins to dispute with him, he should overwhelm her with kisses. Then when his lingam is erect he should touch her with his hands in various places, and gently manipulate various parts of the body. If the woman is bashful, and if it is the first time that they have come together, the man should place his hands between her thighs, which she would probably keep close together, and if she is a very young girl, he should first get his hands upon ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... fool!" thought Beatrix, with an inward burst. "A bashful, ridiculous fool! Why, in the name of all that's namby-pamby, doesn't he pop the question, like a man, and have done with it? Bashfulness is all very well—nobody likes a little of it better than I do; but there is no use running ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... praise!—like summer rose, That brighter in the dew-drop glows, The bashful maiden's cheek appeared, For Douglas spoke, and Malcolm heard. The flush of shame-faced joy to hide, The hounds, the hawk, her cares divide; The loved caresses of the maid The dogs with crouch and whimper paid; And, at her whistle, on her hand The falcon took his favorite stand, Closed his ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... that there were four men of free manners in the house, avowed supporters of Mr. Lovelace in matters of offence; himself a man of enterprise; all, as far as I knew, (and as I had reason to think by their noisy mirth after I left them,) drinking deeply: that Miss Partington herself is not so bashful a person as she was represented to me to be: that officious pains were taken to give me a good opinion of her: and that Mrs. Sinclair made a greater parade in prefacing the request, than such a request needed. To deny, thought I, can ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... scented note upon the table; another day, in a bashful, girlish way, which accorded strangely with the young officer's great, manly aspect, there was a hint let fall; and before long Dick smiled to himself as he felt certain that he had been right in his guess as to ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... New York go mad over aviation—rather, over news about aviation. The newspapers had spread over front pages his name and the names of the other fliers. Carl chuckled to himself, with bashful awe, "Gee! can you beat it?—that's me!" when he beheld himself referred to in editorial and interview and picture-caption as a superman, a god. He heard crowds rustle, "Look, there's Hawk Ericson!" as ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... I was very bashful, and a sixteen-year-old girl came to stay a week with us. She was a peach, and I was seized with a happiness not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... result of this attitude and feeling is an estrangement from those of another faith, a bashful reluctance to meet them and to co-operate with them in social or civic matters, an unconscious tendency to see motives that do not exist and, at times, to refrain from the most elementary acts of charity and courtesy. "It often happens that we manifest towards the heretic the feeling ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... beside him on one side, and his hat on the other, making his declaration in full and unmistakable terms. A yard or two of floor, more or less, between them, was neither here nor there. At first the bashful Crinoline could not bring herself to utter a distinct consent, and Macassar was very nearly up and away, in a returning fit of despair. But her good-nature came to his aid; and as she quickly said, 'I will, I will, I will,' he returned to his posture ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... marriage takes place. Every one in camp who sees the girl carrying the food in a covered dish to the young man's lodge, knows that a marriage is to take place; and the girl is watched by idle persons as she passes to and fro, so that the task is quite a trying one for people as shy and bashful as Indians are. When the time for the marriage has come,—in other words, when the girl's parents are ready,—the girl, her mother assisting her, packs the new lodge and her own things on the horses, and moves out into the middle of the circle—about which all ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... them both of the years of their youth and of their loves of long ago: so almost with tears they gathered around the table and gazed eagerly upon her. Some asked Zosia to raise her head and show her eyes; others begged her to be so kind as to turn around—the bashful girl turned around, but covered her eyes with her hands. Thaddeus looked on gaily and ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... through his skin. His big milky eyes made him seem uncanny, standing there shivering in the shade. He hobbled down the pebbly bank on his tender feet, his bashful grin breaking into a dozen contortions of pain as he went. The boys stood watching him like tigers awaiting a Christian martyr. He paused at the water's edge, put in a toe and jerked it out ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... wants me to be sure to tell you not to over-study, and I want to tell you to be sure not to under-study. What we're really sending you to Harvard for is to get a little of the education that's so good and plenty there. When it's passed around you don't want to be bashful, but reach right out and take a big helping every time, for I want you to get your share. You'll find that education's about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it's about the only thing a fellow can have ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... them even took a sort of liking to her, and gave her an uncouth greeting as they went by; and, more than once, one or another of them had paused to ask for a flower or two, and had received them with a curious bashful awe, when they had been passed ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... amang, among. ance, once. auld, old. belyve, by and by. blate, bashful. blinkin, gleaming. blythe, happy. braw, brave, fine. cannie, easy. carking, fretting. certes, certain. chows, chews. claes, clothes. convoy, accompany. cracks, talks. craws, crows. drapping, dropping. eydent, diligent. ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... her heart. How could she be afraid of the gentle creature, who, in her snowy night dress, with her golden hair falling about her face and neck, looked like some beautiful angel flitting about the room, pretending to arrange this and that, casting half bashful glances at Edith, who was longer in disrobing and at last, as if summoning all her courage for the act, stepping behind the thin lace window curtains, which she drew around her, saying softly, "don't look at me, Miggie, will you, 'cause I'm going ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... expression, tears came to her eyes, they soon flowed freely and rolled down her cheeks; she sobbed, and, through her tears, she uttered, almost inarticulately, the one word, "Yes." A convulsive, inspiratory grunt, a bashful, receding, turning away of the head and body, a raising of the hands to cover her face and hide her tears, and hasty, running steps to get away, while murmuring audibly "Let me go away," followed rapidly ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... that man is a creature largely devoid of instincts. The fact is, however, that he is endowed with a large number of impulsive or instinctive tendencies to act in definite ways, when in particular situations. Man has a tendency, under the proper conditions, to be fearful, bashful, angry, curious, sympathetic, grasping, etc. It is only, moreover, because experience finally gives man ideas of these instinctive movements, that they may in time be controlled by reason, and developed into ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... he said, with a confidence surprising in a man who had been so bashful in his interview with Birdie. Just for a moment one of his great hands went up to his cheek, and he gently smoothed it, as though the recollection of the slap he had received in the process of gathering information was ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... such a sine qua non and ultimatum my vox faucibus haesit and stuck in my gizzard with bashful sheepishness, for how to convulse the Thames and set it on fire and all agog with amazement at the humdrum incidents of so very ordinary an existence as mine, which is spent in the diligent study of Roman, Common, International, and Canonical Law from morn to dewy eve in the lecture-hall ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... surroundings were satin. At this sight the poor child, armed against his desire, so great was his fear, dared only to make brief devotion and curt caresses, and although he kissed softly this fair surface, he remained bashful, the which, feeling by the senses of her soul and the intelligence of her body, the seneschal's lady who took great care not to move, called out to him—"Ah, Rene, I ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... scout, too, who made a specialty of silence in that hilarious Bedlam, and that was a gaunt, thin, little fellow with streaky hair and a pale face, who sat huddled up, apparently enjoying the banter, laughing with a bashful, silent laugh. He made no noise whatever, except when occasionally he coughed, and the others seemed content to let him enjoy himself in his own way. His eyes had a singular brightness, and when he laughed his white teeth and rather drawn mouth ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Dolph showed such excitement, but he had good cause, and, when he saw Chad standing, shamefaced and bashful, in the middle of the floor, and Melissa joyously pointing her finger at him, he caught up the banjo from the bed and put it into the boy's hands. "Here, you just play that ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Mr. Stubbs, "and that will answer just as well, so come along, and don't be bashful. I'm about as hungry as a bear, and I guess you ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... Duchess by the Signora Vulpato, waited very respectfully on the lady in her box all through the winter. Never was love more ardent in two souls, or more bashful in its advances. The two children were afraid of each other. Massimilla was no coquette. She had no second string to her bow, no secondo, no terzo, no patito. Satisfied with a smile and a word, she admired her Venetian youth, with his pointed face, his long, thin nose, ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... feel it. He shared with me all the treasures of his mind, and regarded me as instrumental in his discoveries, leaving me the credit of my insignificant contributions. He was always as gracious as a woman in love; he had all the bashful feeling, the delicacy of soul which make life ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... mistress, he is the most beautiful youth of the age, and the women of the whole city are distracted with his charms; yet he is so bashful as to answer no advances, and shrinks from notice like a school-boy, but I will endeavour to overcome his shyness, and procure you a meeting." Having said thus, she went immediately to the wallet-maker's, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... sweet-tempered and credulous as in her childhood, grew up into a home-lover. We all wondered why John Anderson, who was studying medicine, should fancy Mary, plain good girl that she was. John had been a bashful boy and a hard student whom the girls failed to interest. But the home Mary made for him later, and her two sons that grew up in it, are justification of his choice of wife. The two boys are men now, one in Seattle, ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... he met her in company again, and was persuaded to go through the ordeal of another presentation. The stately woman fixed her eyes on him as before, and slowly said, "You've made me weep again." This time the bashful author ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... to wait, perhaps, but time was inexorable. Save for one hurried interview, I did not see him again for a week, and then it was before the altar. His garrulity had fallen from him like a garment. He was preoccupied and a trifle bashful. He fumbled with the ring. I felt almost as though he was ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... ago, when the world was young, there lived a very bashful young man. Not far from his house there lived the most beautiful young woman in the world. The young woman had many suitors but rejected all, wishing only for the love of the bashful young man. He in his turn was accustomed to follow her about, longing for courage to declare his love, ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... accept my tale (thinks I), suppose he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her. I shall have a fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by disgracing both the lassie and myself. Thereupon I began hastily to expound to him my sister's character. She was of a bashful disposition, it appeared, and so extremely fearful of meeting strangers that I had left her at that moment sitting in a public place alone. And then, being launched upon the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in the same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... drove a lively traffic with the savages for much of such "truck," and the chief came on board and ate and drank merrily with the strangers. His wife and children, short of stature but well-formed and bashful, also paid them a visit. She wore a long coat of leather, with a piece of leather about her loins, around her forehead a band of white coral, and from her ears bracelets of pearls of the bigness of great peas hung down to her middle. The other women wore pendants of copper, as did the children, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and his florid face took on an added color. In his embarrassment he giggled like a bashful boy, and scraped one foot behind him ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... obedience to him, bashful, tearful, trembling, confused, but radiant and lovely as I had never seen her, and lifting her timid eyes to his, as it seemed for further instructions, with a gentle deprecating grace, while she carefully ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... she was struck by the marked alteration in Maurice, noted the change with undisguised admiration. To her eyes he was a thousand times more attractive than ever, and she told him so without a shadow of bashful hesitation. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... carry to the garden, and to put them between my teeth without passing them through his own. From the softness of the bits of bread, and my having seen my poet come out of the monastery, I surmised that his muse, like that of many of his brethren, was a bashful beggar. He walked into the city, and I followed him, intending to take him for my master if he would let me, thinking that the crumbs from his table might serve to support me, since there is no better or ampler purse than charity, whose liberal ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Sara Downs' beau does," explained Norman. "He always makes an engagement so that she'll be sure to have the best room lighted up and Billy out of the way. He's too bashful to talk to the whole family. They usually go out to the kitchen when he comes, because their house is ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... never tempted her with word too large, But, as a brother to his sister, show'd Bashful sincerity and ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... chimney-pots. It had a large room, which was approached by an infirm step-ladder: the builder having declined to construct the intended staircase, without a present payment in cash, which Dullborough (though profoundly appreciative of the Institution) seemed unaccountably bashful ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Oh yes, he showed him. But Scout Harris was too busy showing all the rest of them to do any exclusive showing for the pioneer scout. And besides, Peter, who was too new and too bashful and too awed by his companions and surroundings to be a good general mixer, was mostly occupied with his hero, Nick Vernon. Pee-wee, who was a mixer as well as a fixer, went on mixing and fixing and soon he performed his greatest of all "fixing" feats; probably the greatest fixing ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to repeat all that the bashful, though ardent, man of war said to Maraquita, or all that Maraquita said to the man of war; how, ignoring the celestial orbs and domestic economy, she launched out into a rhapsodical panegyric of Azinte; told how the poor slave had unburdened ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... MacKenzie used to put it in his peppery reproof, I always did have a knack of tumbling head first the instant an opportunity offered. This time I had gone in heels and all, and now came up in as fine a confusion as any bashful bumpkin ever displayed before his lady. Frances Sutherland had regained her composure and came to my rescue with another attempt to take the lead ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... something to smoke?" the carpenter asked. The obscurity caused him to look large and shapeless, though his manner of speaking was bashful and subdued. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... circular swivel. Only gradually did he succeed in fixing his eyes on the object presented to him; but, as soon as he did perceive it, he immediately extended his little arms sideways, as though somewhat bashful, and then, like a delighted child, suddenly seizing it with hand and mouth at once, he deliberately tore the prey to pieces. During the day the mago was sleepy, short-sighted, and, when disturbed, morose; but with the decreasing ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... lightly on my conscience, and when my pride had somewhat recovered from the wound which it had received, my better nature asserted itself for I reflected that here were two young creatures whom nature intended for one another and I determined to give these bashful lovers another opportunity in which to ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Newhall Street, and there is a special waiting room for the use of marriage parties whilst they are preparing to go before the Registrar, a provision which will no doubt be fully appreciated by many blushing maidens and bashful bachelors. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... party to which the 'handsome young Englishman' seemed to have attached himself. He was presented to several of the first rank, and his manners, which for the present were altogether free from the bashful restraint by which, in a moment of less excitation, they were usually clouded, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... gazing into the fire. She went out, came back with a dish, shook her curl out of the way, and tried again: "I suppose we're to thank you for recommending the lodgings—ain't we, Mr. Thorne? I'm sure ma's much obliged to you. And I'm glad"—this with a bashful glance—"that you felt you could. It seems ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... It was so sudden, it had always appeared to me that a great deal must be gone through with—a great many different degrees of intimacy surmounted, before I should ever find myself within the house of Mrs. Eylton; but here was I, without the least warning, to be transformed from the bashful child, who made no sign of recognition save an awkward courtesy, into the regular visitor—and for a whole afternoon! No wonder I took so long to deliberate. Though not particularly remarkable for bashfulness or timidity ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... so much at home that he didn't know how to behave with strangers. Because he didn't want anyone to guess that he was bashful, he frowned fiercely. Because he didn't want anyone to think him "sissy," he had his wavy hair clipped till his head looked like a golf ball. He ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... makes my game park his stampin' grounds every onct in a while, an' let me tell you he hunts some peculiar, he do, he's half man and half wolf—but shucks, I won't spoil the show, you will see how he hunts for yourself if you stay here long. Glory be, but he's got me some bashful and shy. But mosey along and I'll hist yore stuff on this here cayuse while you let them tha' dogs out of their chicken coop boxes. You can cache your dude duds in the Emporium general store over yonder next to Squinty ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... man can prize, If a fool he be or wise? Yet, though lonely seem the wood, Therein may lurk the beast of blood; Often bashful looks conceal Tongue of fire and heart of steel; And deem not thou in forest gray, Every dappled skin thy prey, Lest thou rouse, with luckless spear, The tiger for the fallow-deer! ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... a circle holding hands, slowly revolving around a bashful young man standing in the center of the circle. As they circled they sang that old ditty so dear to the youth ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... bloom is visible alike in beauty of external form, free and unfettered, and an inner disposition, bashful, generous; a spirit (32) at once imperial and affable, (33) born to rule among its fellows—that such a being will, of course, admire and fondly cling to his beloved, is a thesis which needs no further argument on my part. Rather I will essay to teach you, ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon |
