"Diffident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... locum tenens was usually a gentleman of very opposite characteristics. He was tall, thin, modest, and even diffident. He slipped into your cell, as I said before, with the deferential air of an undertaker. His speech was extremely soft and rapid, although he stuttered a little now and then from nervousness. "I suppose you know," I asked on his first visit, "what I am here for?" "Y-e-s," he stammered, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... what I say is distasteful to you, please stop me." She waited a moment; then, as he evinced no desire to check or interrupt her: "I am very diffident about saying this to you—to a man so justly celebrated—pre-eminent in the greatest of all professions. I am so insignificant in comparison, so unimportant, so ignorant where you ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... confident that you will be both happy together. What you tell me of your fear of not being worthy of him, and able to make him sufficiently happy, is for me but a proof more of it. Deep affection makes us always diffident and very humble. Those that we love stand so high in our own esteem, and are in our opinion so much above us and all others that we naturally feel unworthy of them and unequal to the task of making them happy: but there is, I think, a mingled charm in this feeling, for although we regret not to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... hill to the solitary little inn of Garra-na-hina. At the door, muffled up in a warm woolen plaid, stood a young girl, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and diffident in look. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... fearful," who dread suffering or reproach for the cause of Christ,—not the self-diffident who loves his Captain, but the coward or deserter, who "turns back in the day of battle," who fears the enemy more than his Captain:—"and unbelieving," not the misbelieving, as Thomas; nor the weak in faith, but such as have ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... London to Rome without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an old subject they had once discussed, but it had lost its recognised place in their attention, and even after their arrival in Rome, where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half-diffident, half-confident silence. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... powerful country lad, twenty-four years old, who, two months before, had come from an Illinois farm to join the expedition. The frontier was to him a place of varied diversion, Independence a stimulating center. So diffident that the bashful David seemed by contrast a man of cultured ease, he was now blushing till the back ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... men who were engaged in intimate conversation as they passed the door. The one was George Rumm, skipper of the Black Eagle—a timid, weak-mouthed, shifty-eyed man, with an obsequious drawl in his voice, a diffident manner, and, altogether, a loose, weak way. The other was old Tom Tulk of Twillingate. Archie leaped back with an apology to Skipper George. The boy had no word to say to Tom Tulk of Twillingate. Tom Tulk was notoriously a rascal whom the law was eager to catch but ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... dangerous," said the other, as if giving information, although he knew perfectly that Bates was aware of this. He had grown a little diffident in stating why he ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... rather a stoical, baffled kind of melancholy. In abstract questions he did not lack courage of thought, but when faced with the facts of life he was a mixture, or rather a succession, of timidity and stiffness, diffident modesty, and firmness of conviction. In short he was a man, like other men, complex and contradictory, not all in one piece. The trouble is that, in an intellectual and a man of science, the pieces lap over one another and the ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... pacing up and down the moonlight walk. Harry, knowing Julia's secret, would liked to have ascertained his friend's feelings towards her. He was certain that he admired her, but aware how diffident he was in consequence of his position, he was very doubtful whether he would venture to tell her so. Harry's respect for his sister prevented him from even suggesting the probability that he would not be refused should he ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Italian and French. Never has England been so cosmopolitan, at least so European, in its absorption of ideas and knowledge. It is only since the icebound Puritan days that England has become insular, self-contained, in part hugely conceited, and in part absurdly diffident, concerning itself. The best work of Byron and Shelley aimed at breaking down this attitude, and if we are again growing out of our insularity—which is open to much doubt—it is in no small measure due to writers of ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... in an easy-chair near the window, doing nothing, when I marched in to begin the siege. I felt diffident and uneasy, although I am not usually troubled that way. But if I should live to the advanced age of Methusaleh, I could never forget Mrs. Pinkerton's appearance on that memorable occasion. Before I had spoken a word I saw that she knew what was coming, and had hardened ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... him as peculiarly one who gave to the profession of arms the attraction that had made it the vocation of the aristocrat. Waiting for her in the dismantled dining-room, despite all that he had passed through, his greeting had the diffident, boyish manner of her recollection; and despite a night on the ground his brown uniform was without creases, giving him a ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... the arm, too penitent to be diffident over the unaccustomed gallantry, and hustled her toward the section house. His mind registered the fact that the bartender, the fireman, the brakeman and the conductor would shortly apologize abjectly for standing outside the saloon gawping at ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... a small, intensely loyal town," she continued; "and when Virginia seceded it burned with a single high flame of sacrifice. My father had been always a diffident man; he collected mezzotints and avoided people. So, when the enlistment began, he shrank away from the crowds and hot speeches, and the men went off without him. He lived in complete retirement then, with his prints, in a town of women. ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... talk of such men was often apt to be over his head, as it would have been over mine, and often made him painfully diffident and shy. He needn't have been; he little knew the kind of feeling he inspired among ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... respect she seemed but little different from those whose fathers and mothers were still alive to bring them before public notice, yet, nevertheless, her friendliness made her oftentimes feel very diffident from the want ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... three times about the people in the humbler walks of life bein' strangely something or other. You ain't such a humble walker now, are you, son? But say, that yellow-haired woman, she ain't a bit diffident, is she? She's a very hearty lady, I ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... character, he is a retiring, but most worthy youth. Are there not some young ladies who would prefer the company of the showy, chattering fop; who would receive his address, yea, accept him as a husband, and reject the diffident, modest youth? Yet the latter would make a kind, affectionate, provident husband; likely to attain to respectability, high-standing, and wealth: while the former would most probably prove a poor, cross-grained ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... dispersing, purposeless crowd and caught up with him as he was about to lose himself in a dark network of little squalid streets. He felt oddly young and diffident, for the schoolmaster is always the schoolmaster though he ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... I have not witnessed those scenes myself), and looked around at the people with an air of placid sufficiency which was the first hint to the world of the man's overweening, immeasurable conceit, hidden hitherto under a diffident manner. It could be seen too in his dogged assertion that if he had been given enough time and a lot more money everything would have come right. And there were some people (yes, amongst his very victims) who more than ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... So, true to his diffident nature, Malcolm walked to the other end of Addison's Walk; then something seemed to drag at him, and he retraced his steps slowly and reluctantly; finally, as though constrained by some unseen power that overmastered his reserve, he sat down on the bench and touched the ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... above Six Hundred Men to carry their Bag and Baggage, and like Grooms to look after their Horses: The Spaniards departing thence, a Captain related to the Superiour Tyrant returned thither to rob this (no ways diffident or mistrustful) People, and pierced their King through with a Lance, of which Wound he dyed upon the Spot, and committed several other Cruelties into the bargain. In another Neighboring Town, whose Inhabitants they thought, ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... was a blushing and sensitive person, she was not what is commonly called a diffident girl;—her nerves had that healthy, steady poise which gave her presence of mind ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... the extreme impatience, the hurried anxiety, I had felt and suffered from, while riding up the avenue, had now fled entirely, and in its place I felt nothing but a diffident distrust of myself, and a vague sense of awkwardness about intruding thus unexpectedly upon the family, while engaged in all the cares and preparations for a speedy departure. The hall-door lay as usual wide open, the hall ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... distinct proposal of marriage; and these, it is hardly necessary to say, had been firmly, but as pleasantly as possible, sent to the right-about. This class of lovers gave Lucy no trouble whatever; bold as they might be in the pursuit of their lawless avocation, they were diffident to the verge of absurdity in the presence of beauty, if associated with dignity and refinement; they were painfully conscious of their uncouth bearing and manners; and Lucy had little difficulty in keeping them at ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... quickly towards him. The slightest possible tinge of additional colour was in her cheeks. She was walking on the top of a green bank, with the wind blowing her skirts around her. The turn of her head was a little diffident, almost shy. Her eyes were asking him questions. At that moment she seemed to him, with her slim body, her gently parted lips and soft, tremulous eyes, almost like a child. He drew a little nearer ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... words he ever spoke to me, though I saw him again. We shook hands in silence, and he left. Nor would the others stay. I had ruined the night. We were all self-conscious, diffident, suspicious. Even Vicary was affected. How thankful I was that my silent lover had not come! My secret was my own—and his. And no one should surprise it unless we chose. I cared nothing what they ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... Slowly, and with diffident pauses, Michael began to speak of himself, feeling at first as if he was undressing in public. But as he went on he became conscious of the welcome that his story received, though that welcome only expressed itself in perfectly unemotional monosyllables. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... rhetoricians. To analyse the precise method whereby a great personality can make itself felt in words, even while it neglects and contemns the study of words, would be to lay bare the secrets of religion and life—it is beyond human competence. Nevertheless a brief and diffident consideration of the matter may bring thus much comfort, that the seeming contradiction is no discredit cast on letters, but takes its origin rather from too narrow and pedantic a view of the scope ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... women did not wish to vote, I adopted the plan of calling for a rising vote at the close of my lectures, and on all occasions a majority of the women would promptly rise. Knowing that the men had the responsibility of voting before their eyes, and might be diffident about rising, I reversed the manner of expression in their case, requesting all those in favor of woman suffrage to keep their seats, and those opposed to rise up, thus throwing the onerous duty of changing their attitudes on the opposition. So few arose under such circumstances that it was ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... had as yet no time to experience the relief, to appreciate his liberty, before he was face to face with this new loneliness. To-night, he thought, as he looked at the empty place and remembered his wistful, almost diffident invitation, the solitude was almost unendurable. If she had only understood how much it meant, surely she would have made some effort, would not have been content with that half-embarrassed, half-doubtful shake ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had seen any new faces in church. But no; neither of them had, it was evident, seen my ladies in half-mourning, about whom I was diffident ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for we have never met," she said slowly, and with emphasis. "Moreover, Beth Norvell is my stage name, but in part it is my true name also." Suddenly she paused and glanced aside at him. "I have spoken with unusual frankness to you this morning, Mr. Winston. Most people, I imagine, find me diffident and uncommunicative—perhaps I appear according to my varying moods. But I have been lonely, and in some way you have inspired my confidence and unlocked my life. I believe you to be a man worthy of trust, and because I thus believe I am now going to request you not to ask ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... was forgotten; posterity, instead, has had to wonder over the profound wisdom of the Roman aristocrat, who understood nothing. Moreover, if in 14 B.C. Licinius had to make an effort to persuade the surprised and diffident Augustus that Gaul was a province of great future, it is clear that Gaul must already have begun to grow rich by itself without the Roman government's having done ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... with a beating heart, and felt for his father's letter. He had become so diffident, and his head felt so confused, that he would gladly have sat down for a moment to rest and compose himself. But there was no rest here. A great wagon stood at the door, and within, colossal bales and barrels; ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... However, they stood drawn up for battle and under arms, until night came on; neither side choosing to begin the fray. After this, they continued a considerable time encamped near each other, without coming to action; neither diffident of their own strength, nor despising the adversary. Meanwhile matters went on actively in Etruria; for a decisive battle was fought with the Umbrians, in which the enemy was routed, but lost not many men, for they did not maintain the fight with the vigour with ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... pick up the threads. You and your husband appear to be his only friends, and as a distant connection you might be able to approach him upon a subject where a stranger, or shall we say a forgotten friend, would be diffident." He paused, then added, "I wonder if he has the remotest idea that, owing to several deaths, he is now the next heir to ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... analyzing Bertha's character, wondering vaguely that a person who moved so timidly in social life, appearing so diffident, from an ever-present fear of blundering against the established forms of etiquette, could judge so quickly, and with such a merciless certainty, whenever a moral question, a question of right and wrong, was at issue. And, pursuing the same train of thought, he ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... pines in penury—he is infected with plague—he is scourged by war—he is the victim of famine—he is afflicted with disease—he is the sport of a thousand accidents, &c. This is the reason why all men are fearful; why the whole human race are diffident. The knowledge he has of pain alarms him upon all unknown causes, that is to say, upon all those of which he has not yet experienced the effect; this experience made with precipitation, or if it be preferred, by instinct, places ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... in front of this spate of talk, becoming more diffident and fearful every moment. He had never had any thought as to how he should tell the Paymaster that the goodwife of Ladyfield was dead, that was a task he had expected to be left to some one else, but Jean Clerk and her sister had a cunning enough purpose in making him the bearer ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... jarred, and often, as we wandered homewards, we exchanged notes, and were mutually useful, his observations appearing in my paper, and mine in his, with proper modifications. How he used to roar in the Gazette against the opposite party, and yet I never heard anything from him myself but what was diffident and tender. He had acquired, as an instrument necessary to him, an extraordinarily extravagant style, and he laid about him with a bludgeon, which inevitably descended on the heads of all prominent persons if they happened not to be Conservative, no matter what their virtues might be. One peculiarity, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... unconsciously to John, and he handed her into the phaeton, as Denbigh stood willing to execute his part of the arrangement, but too diffident to speak. It was not a moment for affectation, if Emily had been capable of it, and blushing with the novelty of her situation, she took her place in the gig. Denbigh stopped and turned his eyes on the little group with which he had been ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... migrated from Lincoln's Inn. During his first years at the chancery bar, Cairns showed little promise of the eloquence which afterwards distinguished him. Never a rapid speaker, he was then so slow and diffident, that he feared that this defect might interfere with his legal career. Fortunately he was soon able to rid himself of the idea that he was only fit for practice as a conveyancer. In 1852 he entered parliament as member for Belfast, and his Inn, on his becoming a Q.C. in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... in common, and they have not that nicety or necessity of privacy which would compel an Englishman to claim the right to wear the same coat and trousers two days running. But the monks are even less diffident of claiming their own separate mugs and plates at table, and are unoffended by miscellaneous eating and drinking from ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... Bragelonne, a young man fifteen years of age, attached to the Prince de Conde—has he the honor of being known to you?" diffident in allowing the sarcastic Aramis to perceive how strong were his ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... little diffident about running up close to a wounded bear, for Tom had told us it would fight when it got down. Nevertheless, we nocked an arrow again, and just as he reached the ground we were close by to receive him. We delivered two ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... appear nor rash nor diffident; Immod'rate valour swells into a fault; And fear, admitted into public councils, Betrays like treason. Let us shun them both. Fathers, I cannot see that our affairs Are grown thus desp'rate: we have bulwarks round us; Within our walls are troops inured ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... mute,—not so much tormented with cruel kindness as Dick Wilson, because she had a certain short, decided way of answering and refusing, and was supposed to be rather sullen than diffident. However that might be, she certainly did not give much pleasure to the company;—nor did she appear to derive much from it. Eliza told me she had only come because her father insisted upon it, having taken it into his head that she devoted herself too exclusively to her household duties, to the ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... around and saying to me: 'I'm a poor married man, but you can't notice the scar,' or something like that?" The agent was plainly interested and desirous of rendering any assistance possible, and also rather diffident about discussing so delicate a matter with a man ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... and had come back without the light in his face he usually brought with him, as if the radiance from the sanctuary lamp loved to linger on the blind face. He was difficult all the rest of the morning, and the kind, patient woman who read aloud to him and wrote his letters became nervous and diffident, thinking ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... of that Cornelian ink Which gave Agricola dateless length of days, To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's brink, With him so statue-like in sad reserve, So diffident to claim, so forward to deserve! 200 Nor need I shun due influence of his fame Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as now The equestrian shape with unimpassioned brow, That paces silent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... which was finally detailed to watch for slavers and to protect American commerce on the African coast. He had kept a journal of his various experiences and observations, which he sent to Hawthorne with a rather diffident interrogation as to whether it might be worth publishing. Hawthorne was decidedly of the opinion that it ought to be published,—in which we cordially agree with him,—and was well pleased to edit it for his friend; ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... be admitted that the vogue of Thorwaldsen owed much to the remarkable social qualities of the man. His handsome face and fine form were supplemented by a manner most gentle and winning; and whether his half-diffident ways and habit of reticence were natural or the triumph of art was a vexing problem that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... parents, are charming allurements, almost irresistible temptations! And what makes me mistrust myself the more, and be the more diffident; for we are but too apt to be persuaded into any thing, when the motives are ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... said he should write to them all in the morning and announce his decision. Then, after they had gone, he turned to Denison with a pleasant smile and an approving look at Sum Fat's shirt, and asked him if he had had previous experience of proof-reading. Denison, in a diffident manner, said that he had not exactly ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... cut his own on the great Punch table. He himself described the glamour Thackeray's name possessed for him, inspiring him as he climbed out of the despair that followed the sudden partial deprivation of his sight. The only time he met his master he was too diffident to accept an invitation to be introduced. Thackeray seemed so great. But all that evening he remained as close to him as possible, greedily listening to his words. Like Thackeray, du Maurier thought that the finest thing ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... encouraging to the student of public speaking to recall that this distinguished orator at first had serious natural defects to overcome. His voice was weak, he stammered in his speech, and was painfully diffident. These faults were remedied, as is well-known, by earnest daily practise in declaiming on the sea-shore, with pebbles in the mouth, walking up and down hill while reciting, and deliberately seeking occasions for conversing ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... Editor [to whom it was referred to publish the Whole in such a Way as he should think would be most acceptable to the Public] was so diffident in relation to this Article of Length, that he thought proper to submit the Letters to the Perusal of several judicious Friends; whose Opinion he desired of ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... if you decide to act in harmony with the United States, that does not mean subordinating British interests to the President's views, which are not those of the majority of his people." But Mr. Lloyd George, invincibly diffident—if diffidence it be—shrank from marching alone, and on certain questions which mattered much Mr. Wilson had ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Gentz. W. von Humboldt records a conversation which he had in the year of the Revolution with Schiller. The latter unhesitatingly professed his faith in the unity of love. "It (the blending of love and sensuality) is always possible and always there." But Humboldt was diffident, unable fully to grasp the new conception. "I said that it would sever the most beautiful, most delicate relationships, that it was too heterogeneous to admit of coherence; but my principal argument was that in the majority of cases it was out of ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Jimmie Dale produced a flashlight. The ray played once, as though with queer, diffident curiosity, about him, swept once more in a circuit around the room, swiftly, in an almost startled way this time—and there was darkness again. And, instead of the flashlight, Jimmie Dale's automatic was in his hand now, and he was ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... word about Mistletoe had been false. She had not yet secured her invitation. She was hard at work on the attempt, having induced her father absolutely to beg the favour from his brother. But at the present moment she was altogether diffident of success. Should she fail she must only tell Lord Rufford that her mother's numerous engagements had at the last moment made her happiness impossible. That she was going to Lady Smijth's was true, and at Lady Smijth's house she received the following note from ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... diffident, expression, which in no way suited his personality, came into Derby's face, and he abruptly rose ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... without some diffident contemplation of the blank left by the middle finger and of the ink-stained edges round the ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... copy to Mr. George Ripley, of the New York "Tribune." "Here is a man," I thought, "whose fame and position as a critic are recognized by all. If he deigns to notice the book, he will not only say what he thinks, but I shall have much reason to think as he does." Mr. Ripley met the diffident author kindly, asked a few questions, and took the volume. A few weeks later, to my great surprise, he gave over a column to a review of the story. Although not blind to its many faults, he wrote ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... time he was painting in oil, and on an enlarged scale, some of his more specially popular sketches in Punch, and very anxious to succeed with them, but nervously diffident of success with them, even with [Greek: hoi polloi]. He was not at his happiest in these efforts; and there was something pathetic in his earnestness and perseverance in attempting a thing so many can do, but which he could not do for want of a better training; ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... res mancipi is explained from faint and remote lights by Ulpian (Fragment. tit. xviii. p. 618, 619) and Bynkershoek, (Opp tom. i. p. 306—315.) The definition is somewhat arbitrary; and as none except myself have assigned a reason, I am diffident of my own.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... (whether he achieveth success or not). The person that is idle and lieth at his length, is overcome by adversity; while he that is active and skillful is sure to reap success and enjoy prosperity. Intelligent persons engaged in acts with confidence in themselves regard all who are diffident as doubting and unsuccessful. The confident and faithful, however, are regarded by them as successful. And this moment misery hath overtaken us. If, however, thou betakest to action, that misery will certainly be removed. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... observation is one of the most trying things I know. I advanced in bad order, hoping that my hands did not really look as big as they felt. The same remark applied to my feet. In emergencies of this kind a diffident man could very well dispense with extremities. I should have liked to be wheeled up ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... the hillside, but there was still a little light among the misty pines, and the girl flashed a quick glance at him. He seemed diffident, but it was evident that he did not wish her to go, and once more she felt ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... In spite of the fact that the old days of poverty and heartache lay behind her like a bad dream, she was still curiously reserved and diffident in the presence of strangers. The decision of her aunt, Miss Susan Allison, to take up her abode in Sanford in order that Constance might finish her high school course with Marjorie had brought many changes into the life ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... only the warmer, the soil the richer, and Italy put forth a succession of exquisite and superb immortal flowers of art when the artistic sap of other countries had begun to be exhausted. But the Italians, the Tuscans, audacious in the other arts, were diffident of themselves with regard to poetry. Architecture, painting, sculpture, had been the undisputed field for plebeian craftsmen, belonging exclusively to the free burghs and disdained by the feudal castles; but poetry ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... them, once this morning. Papa presented me to her, as Lilly's new nurse. She looked so kind and gracious, I thought I should have sunk at her feet, to beg her to bless her child. I could not speak, and papa apologized for me by saying that I was very diffident, but that Lilly seemed to take to me, and he hoped I would do well; and then she smiled on me, and I took ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... the hated cousins might attempt to prove. But there again she was distrustful, both of him and of her own judgment. He might be—it seemed likely—one of those men who conceal the good as well as the bad in themselves, one of the morally shy men. Or again, perhaps, one of the morally diffident, who shrink from arrogating to themselves high standards because they fear for their own virtue if it be put to the test, and cling to the power of saying, later on, "Well, I told you not to expect too much from me!" Such various types of men exist, ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... large nor showy, but was uncommonly neat and tasteful. It was an emerald in a setting of fine gold, and of considerable value; in fact, to buy it I was obliged to empty my purse of the last cent it contained. When, with a diffident manner, I presented the gift, asking my aunt to accept it for a keepsake, as well as a token of my gratitude for her kindness, a truly happy expression came over her usually rather stern countenance. "It was not," she said, "the value of the gift alone which ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... woman, accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerk's desk of the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and made inquiry as to whether there was anything about the place that she could do. She was of a helpless, fleshy build, with a frank, open countenance and an innocent, diffident manner. Her eyes were large and patient, and in them dwelt such a shadow of distress as only those who have looked sympathetically into the countenances of the distraught and helpless poor know anything about. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... mutilated saints Commend me to Fennimore Cooper to find beauty in the Indians Conceived a sort of unwarrantable unfriendliness Confer the rest of their disastrous patronage on some other firm Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo! Cringing spirit of those great men Diffident young man, mild of moustache, affluent of hair Expression Felt that it was not right to steal grapes Fenimore Cooper Indians Filed away among the archives of Russia—in the stove For dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince Free from self-consciousness—which ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... something just as bad. He's going to be punished, never fear!" Baldos smiled in spite of his dismay. It was impossible to face this confident young champion in petticoats without catching her enthusiasm. "What have you done with—with that rose?" she asked suddenly, flushing and diffident. Her ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... pain or displeasure, as she ceased to fear that either would be immediately and intentionally visited upon herself. She evidently thought that on this account there was the greater danger lest a series of trivial annoyances, unnoticed at the time, might cool the affection she valued so highly. Diffident of her own charms, she knew how little hold the women of her race generally have on the hearts of men after the first fever of passion has cooled. It was difficult for her to realise that her thoughts ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... them, since Jim and Sorry had come up, anxious to hear the doctor's opinion and anything else pertaining to the affair. Swan was coming slowly from the bunk-house, buttoning his coat. He seemed to feel that they were waiting for him and to know why. His manner was diffident, deprecating even. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... several times attempted to lure him into joining their circle. But Roderick was shy and constrained in the presence of young ladies. He had had no time to cultivate their acquaintance in his school and college days, and had admired them only from afar in a diffident way; so when Alfred approached him and begged him once more to come and be introduced he slipped away downstairs to talk with his old ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... charm thrown over my senses, must still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her mother's talents, and must have been under subjection ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... G. Darwin wrote of the seance, "it has given me a lesson with respect to the worthlessness of evidence which I shall always remember, and besides will make me very diffident in trusting myself. Unless I had seen it, I could not have believed in the evidence of any one with such perfect bona fides as Mr. Y being ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... Husband, seems to have been entirely unacquainted with the Affair. And when the Time drew nigh, in which, according (as some think) to Custom, he was about to bless his eldest Son, Rebecca then grew diffident of the Accomplishment of the Promise made in Jacob's Behalf, and applied herself to the Means, which the Text tells us was used on that Occasion. As to the Authority those Heads of Families had to confer Benefits on their ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... cant of hireling clergy; "a holy nation," rotten with the luxury of wealth, or embittered by the sting of poverty; "a peculiar people," deformed to Lucifer's own pleasure by the curse of caste; while, in this pandemonium of Individualism, the weak, the diffident, the scrupulous, and the afflicted, are thrust aside or ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Jarvis looked diffident. "Oh—that." He hesitated. "Well I sort of felt we owed Tweel a lot, so after some trouble, we coaxed him into the rocket and sailed him out to the wreck of the first one, over on Thyle II. Then," he finished apologetically, "I showed him the atomic blast, got it ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... explained nothing. Ella was aware of no weapon in the armory of her sex capable of effecting the subjugation of a previously quite indifferent young man in the course of a ten-minutes' walk. If, indeed, such weapons there had been, Maud Elliott, the most reserved and diffident girl of her acquaintance,—"stiff and pokerish," Ella called her,—-was the last person likely to employ them. It must be, Ella was forced to conclude, that Arthur was trying to punish her for snubbing him by devoting himself to Maud; and, having adopted this conclusion, ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the men that I know intimately,' said the archdeacon, 'Arabin is, in my opinion, the most free from any taint of self-conceit. His fault is that he's too diffident.' ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... presumably under his orders, professionally if not in private life. Some of them were amazingly patronising and self-possessed, and these did not ask Cicely to dance again. She felt, when they returned her to her mother, that she had not been a success with them. Others were boyish and diffident, and with them she got on pretty well. With one, a modest child of nineteen or so with a high-sounding title, she was almost maternally friendly, and he seemed to cling to her as a refuge from a new ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... wife's social yearnings or even realize the verity of their existence. Their boy was too young; besides, what can be done with a boy, anyway? As for herself, she had begun too late; she was a little too stiff, too diffident; society slightly intimidated her; she felt sure she could never hope to associate in easy, intimate fashion—even should the most abundant opportunity present—with the ladies whose names were so often printed in the papers. She might serve ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Tarbill increased. He would not stay alone in his cabin, and finally begged for Bob to keep him company. Bob was a little diffident about going in, after the trick he had played, but the nervous passenger seemed to forget all about that. The two sat up and talked instead of going to their berths, for sleep was out of the question amid the howling of ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... at the Bell Inn, in Wood-street, and the heroine may possibly be daughter to the poor old clergyman who is reading the direction of a letter close to the York waggon, from which vehicle she has just alighted. In attire—neat, plain, unadorned; in demeanor—artless, modest, diffident: in the bloom of youth, and more distinguished by native innocence than elegant symmetry; her conscious blush, and downcast eyes, attract the attention of a female fiend, who panders to the vices of the opulent and libidinous. Coming out of the door ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the bustling self-confidence of the lady nurse, but was very gentle and diffident. Surely Aylmer must be in love with her, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... her efforts. When 'Janet's Repentance' was drawing to a close, and arrangements were being made for re-issuing the sketches as a separate publication, he wrote to Mr. Lewes, 'George Eliot is too diffident of his own powers and prospects of success. Very few men, indeed, have more reason to be satisfied as far as the experiment has gone. The following should be a practical cheerer,'—and then he proceeded to say how the Messrs, Blackwood ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... with their tongues, after which they seemed to consider the bargain satisfactorily concluded. The youngest of the party very modestly kept behind the others, and, before he was observed to have done so, missed several presents, which his less diffident, though not importunate companions had received. As the night closed in they became desirous to depart, and they left us before dark, highly delighted with their visit. As I had purchased one of their canoes, a boat was sent to land its late owner, as only one ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... fit to consult him: and full as ready and patient to admit of the reprehension of others, in respect of his own oversight or mistakes. He was of very easy, I may say, of very pleasing access; but something slow, and, as it were, diffident in his advances to others. He had something in his nature, that abhorred intrusion into any society whatsoever. Indeed, it is to be regretted, that he was rather blameable in the other extreme; for, by that means, he was personally less known, and, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... were detractors who did not view his version as favourably as Lord Carlisle. He had some difficulty, he tells us, in finding an actor to undertake the part, but at last prevailed upon Mountfort to do so, though he was diffident of appearing in a role in which Hart had made so great a reputation. Mrs. Bracegirdle, as we learn from the list of Dramatis Personae prefixed to the published edition, played Tamyra, and the revival seems to have been a success. But Mountfort was assassinated in the Strand towards ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... sight than two footmen refreshing themselves on the top of the front stairs with a view of the opposite houses, and gratifying the anxious public at the same time with a view of themselves, it is difficult to imagine. They always look so diffident and respectful, that involuntarily our interest in them becomes almost too lively for words. We think with disdain on miserable soldiers and hungry mechanics, and half-starved paupers and whole-starved labourers; and turn, with feelings of a very different kind, to the contemplation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... explains, was an attempt to present in a concise and popular form the theories of criminal anthropologists, on which the author had previously delivered a series of university lectures, and which he feared might have been erroneously or imperfectly understood by those of his hearers who were diffident or insufficiently prepared. ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... Marjorie came over to Ruth's on Wednesday evening, Harold found the girl to be just as he had expected: rather quiet and diffident, even pretty, but not striking-looking; and he made no attempt to become intimate with her. After they had tired of playing cards, whenever Jack and Ruth saw fit to dance together, he offered to do likewise with Marjorie, as a mere matter of form. But he did ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... daughter, Lady Southampton, is not aware of any alteration in her son's mind. The tone of this latter epistle does not seem to evince any great enthusiasm for the match upon the part of either Southampton or his mother; its rather diffident spirit was not lost upon Burghley, who, within a few days of its receipt, commanded the attendance of his young ward at Court. Upon 14th October 1590—that is, less than a month after Viscount Montague's letter to Burghley—we have ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... experiences like another being. She was not herself, said Everybody. When she came home to Woodhouse at Easter, in her bonnet and cloak, everybody was simply knocked out. Imagine that this frail, pallid, diffident girl, so ladylike, was now a rather fat, warm-coloured young woman, strapping and strong-looking, and with a certain bounce. Imagine her mother's startled, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... pause followed, which when song expires Pervades a moment those who listen round; And then of course the circle much admires, Nor less applauds, as in politeness bound, The tones, the feeling, and the execution, To the performer's diffident confusion. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the natural gaiety of his disposition. He says himself to Belford,* 'Thou knowest I love him not, Jack; and whom we love not, we cannot allow a merit to; perhaps not the merit they should be granted.' 'Modest and diffident men,' writes Belford, to Lovelace, in praise of Mr. Hickman, 'wear not soon off those little precisenesses, which the confident, if ever they ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the drums beat, the horses champed. The street was full too, chiefly of peasants, but among them myriad resolute American virgins, in motor veils, whom nothing can ever surprise; a few American men, sceptical, as ever, of anything ever happening; here and there a diffident Englishwoman and Englishman, more in the background, but destined in the end to see all. But what I chiefly noticed was the native girls, with their proud bosoms carried high and nothing on their heads. They at any rate know their own future. No rushing over the globe ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... competence - finely enjoys herself. The new country, some new friends we have made, the interesting experiment of this climate-which (at least) is tragic - all have done her good. I have myself passed a better winter than for years, and now that it is nearly over have some diffident hopes of doing well in the summer and 'eating a little ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enthusiastic, a man who had begun life in military service and was destined to end it in captivity, and upon whom it was easy to impose in every way, since he was politically too credulous for any age, and too diffident, if not too timid, for the age in which he lived. His private virtues made him a model to the Christian world, while his political weakness made him the sport of his enemies. The only stable thing in him was his goodness; ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... and, having the means of subsistence in herself, she could be independent; a letter from her father shows how they were at one on this important subject, and it must have been a great encouragement to her in her loneliness, as she was always diffident of her own powers. However, now her work lay in arranging and copying her husband's MSS., and saving treasures which but for her loving care might have been lost. In the spring of this year, 1823, Trelawny ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... latter end of July or early in August, 1666, and on 16 August she writes from Antwerp to say she has had an interview with William Scott (dubbed in her correspondence Celadon), even having gone so far as to take coach and ride a day's journey to see him secretly. Though at first diffident, he is very ready to undertake the service, only it will be necessary for her to enter Holland itself and reside on the spot, not in Flanders, as Colonel Bampfield, who was looked upon as head of the exiled English at the Hague, watched Scott ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... the world. Its character constitutes its peculiarity, and that may lead to some satisfactory conclusion as to how it was formed, and by what agent the sandy ridges which traverse it were thrown up. I would repeat that I am diffident of my own judgment, and that I should be indebted to any one better acquainted with the nature of these things than I am to point out wherein I ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... Robin, (Turdus migratorius,) though surnamed Redbreast, is a bird of different species and different habits. Little has been written about him, and he enjoys but little celebrity; he has never been puffed and overpraised, and, though universally admired, the many who admire him are diffident all the while, lest they are mistaken in their judgment and are wasting their admiration upon an object that is unworthy of it, and whose true merits fall ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... stroked the books, glanced at the prints. He held out his hands. He came toward her. She was weak, betrayed to a warm softness. Her head was tilted back. Her eyes were closed. Her thoughts were formless but many-colored. She felt his kiss, diffident and reverent, on ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... who were admitted to her intimacy, she was not more respected for her superior talents and intelligence, than held in esteem for her unaffected simplicity of manners. She was the life of her social parties, sustaining the happiness of the hour by her elegant conversation, and encouraging the diffident by her approbation. Amiable in disposition, she was possessed of a beautiful countenance and a handsome person. She wrote verses with facility, but she sought no distinction as a poet, preferring to be regarded as a good housewife and an agreeable member of society. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... telegram from Mr. Richter, if he were to honor me with a friendly despatch. When I am cordially addressed in a message, I have to reply in cordial terms. I cannot possibly have the police ascertain to what party the senders belong. Nor am I so diffident in my views that I should wish to catechize the senders as to their political affiliations. If anybody takes pleasure in making me appear to be a member of anti-semitic societies, let him do so. I have kept away from all undesirable movements, as my position demands, and I could wish that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... about, fancying she was helping to pack the photographic apparatus, while the others dispersed. Presently, seeing no one near, Hubert Delrio said, in a gentle diffident voice, "It would be a great pleasure to me if I might ask you to listen to the verses on St. Cyriac and his mother that the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Poet Tate, mild, diffident, unpractical Poet Tate, who in all his life had never been called upon to face a crisis, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... achievement or restrain from unworthy acts. A school in which the standards of preparation and recitation are low presents a difficult problem for the teacher in the recitation. In some schools pupils who are diffident about reciting, or who do not care to take the trouble, shake their heads in refusal almost before they hear the question in full. Others sit in stolid silence when called upon, and make no response of any kind. ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... bier of the mortal Keats, because for him an idea or a passion was incomparably more real and more comprehensible than the things of flesh and earth, of whose existence the senses persuade us. To such a mind philosophy was not a distant world to be entered with diffident and halting feet, ever ready to retreat at the first alarm of commonsense. It was his daily habitation. He lived in it, and guided himself by its intellectual compass among the perils and wonders of life, as naturally as other men feel their way by touch. This ardent, sensitive, emotional nature, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... his performance which distinguished him from French open-air artistes—he never spoke. Possibly he was diffident of his French accent. He simply uttered a grunt when he wished to call attention to any extraordinary perfection in his performance; in imitation, perhaps, of the "La!—la!" of the prince of French acrobats, Auriol. Whatever he attempted he did well; that is to say, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... have met with in the books of the Peripateticks, and the pretty experiments that have been shew'd me in the Laboratories of Chymists, I am of so diffident, or dull a Nature, as to think that if neither of them can bring more cogent arguments to evince the truth of their assertion then are wont to be brought; a Man may rationally enough retain some doubts concerning ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... has by no means disguised to himself that this work is written, in the first place, for Christians; that is to say, for men who have the right to be very diffident in giving credence to particulars concerning facts which are articles of faith; and although he is aware that St. Bonaventure and many others, in their paraphrases of the Gospel history, have mixed up ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... revolutionized in character by application of the fingers to the various organs, so as to become, for the time being, miserable or gay, philosophical, felonious, murderous, angry, stupid, insane, idiotic, drowsy, hot, cold, credulous, sceptical, timid, courageous, vain, indolent, sensual, hungry, diffident, haughty, avaricious, etc.; and in which the muscular strength, secretions, circulation, pulse, respiration, senses, and morbid or healthy conditions of the frame may be changed or controlled by the nervaura ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... the sugar he rolled out of the door with a half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eye, as if he expected me to follow. I did so, but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scented Pomposo [Footnote: Pomposo: the writer's horse.] in the hollow, not only revealed the cause of his former terror, but decided me to take another ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... discussed such topics as the influence on fiction of the ethical ideal. With Mrs. Carew Captain Quint exchanged reminiscences of travel on distant seas. Brandes attempted to maintain low-voiced conversation with Rue, who responded in diffident monosyllables to ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... had been some two months earlier, when his birthday had been celebrated. Once during his short stay at Greshamsbury he had seen the doctor; but the meeting had been anything but pleasant. He had been afraid to ask after Mary; and the doctor had been too diffident of himself to speak of her. They had met casually on the road, and, though each in his heart loved the other, the meeting had been anything ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... spell upon my faculties, ever since I have been in this house. I certainly have not been able to do myself justice. Whenever I have undertaken to advise, I have had the tables turned upon me. It must be that I am strange and diffident among people I am not accustomed to. I wish they could hear ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... head delivered an address in pantomime, the object of which seemed to be, that the islanders should draw near. One of them stepped forward and made answer, seemingly again urging the strangers not to be diffident, but beach their boat. The captain declined, tossing his arms about in another pantomime. In the end he said something which made them shake their spears; whereupon he fired a pistol among them, which set the whole party running; while one poor little fellow, dropping his spear and clapping ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Feldts', increasingly strained, had become an impossibility. Arnaud Hallet, after his first visit, had soon returned. There was no more mention of his money; but every time he saw her he asked her again, in his special manner—a formality flavored by a slight diffident humor—to marry him. Arnaud's proposals had alternated with Pleydon's ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... be somewhat diffident about invading Kenilworth Mansions was therefore not surprising. He climbed three granite steps, passed through a pair of swinging doors, traversed eight feet of tesselated pavement, climbed three more granite steps, passed ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... dissatisfaction, and found it, like the malice of the world, too ignorant to resent. The edge of his old, passionate adoration had remained bright and keen through the years; and it imparted a strange brilliancy to his eyes, which half convinced me, as presently, with a resumption of his usual air of diffident courtesy, he ushered me out into the vague, spring dawn. And yet, when I had parted from him and was making my way somewhat wearily to my own quarters, my first dubious impression remained. My imagination was busy with the story I had heard, striving quite vainly ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... have naturally expected. The reason was soon forthcoming. Following his usual plan of getting as much information as possible out of the French, he heard the old man, who seemed unaccountably shy and diffident, mutter casually— ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... womanly nature which instinctively leans upon others. She was diffident, trustful, meek, affectionate. Not quite justly had Mrs. Poyntz described her as "commonplace weak," for though she might be called weak, it was not because she was commonplace; she had a goodness of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Evan put out his hand as if with the intention of giving Done an approving pat on the shoulder, but the young man turned away abruptly, thrusting himself through the men, who had clustered around him muttering diffident compliments, and endeavouring to shake ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... heard him so often speak, and would not credit what he had said of their performance; and he requested Mr. West to show them what, in Philadelphia, was called the Salute. Mr. West had been so long out of practice, that he was at first diffident of attempting this difficult and graceful movement: but, after a few trials, and feeling confidence in himself, he at last performed it with complete success. Out of this trivial incident, an acquaintance arose between him and ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... unknown to her, to describe his or her character. In this way, at what precise date is uncertain, she dictated the following description of Lewis Carroll: "Very clever head; a great deal of number; a great deal of imitation; he would make a good actor; diffident; rather shy in general society; comes out in the home circle; rather obstinate; very clever; a great deal of concentration; very affectionate; a great deal of wit and humour; not much eventuality (or memory ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... sanctum, the editor most surely would have been out if in, would have been a man of short ways, would have seen to it that I went out quickly. But the idea was not to be thought of; Robert Macaire himself in my one coat would have been diffident, apologetic. I joined the ranks of the penny-a-liners—to be literally exact, three halfpence a liners. In company with half a dozen other shabby outsiders—some of them young men like myself seeking to climb; others, older ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... in his observations on the subject; and we are told that "the frequency of forged possessions which were detected by him wrought such an alteration in his judgment, that he, receding from what he had written in his early life, grew first diffident of, and then flatly to deny, the working of witches and devils, as but ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... realize that my affection was returned. Under these circumstances it was unrealizable that there should be any incongruity in the whole affair. I was not myself in the mood of questioning. I was diffident with that diffidence which comes alone from true love, as though it were a necessary emanation from that delightful and overwhelming and commanding passion. In her presence there seemed to surge up within me that which forbade speech. Speech ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... no hesitancy in grappling with the problems of Nature by engineers, but they seem to be diffident and neglectful of human nature in their calculations, leaving it out of their equations, greatly to their own detriment and the world's loss. We can say that matters outside of the known are not our concern, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • John A. Bensel
... Howard! I may speak plainly to you now, mayn't I? I think you have more effect on people than you know. You have upset us! I am not criticising you, because you have exceeded all my hopes. But you are too diffident, and you don't realise your power of sympathy. You are very observant, very quick to catch the drift of people's moods, and you are not at all formidable. You are so much interested in people that you lead them to reveal themselves and ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... you do?" he greeted his colleague in a slightly diffident tone. "Am I to understand that ... may I ask if I am intruding, or..." and he broke off, obviously uncertain as to ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... the journey, to whom we were literally consigned by those who had been previously with us, and who now turned back, while our new friends took the lead of the drays. They were two fine young men, but had very ugly wives, and were for a long time extremely diffident. I found that I could obtain but little information through my black boy,—whether from his not understanding me, or because he was too cunning, is uncertain. One of these young men, however, clearly stated ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... overawe, abash, deter, discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c. 909. Adj. fearing &c. v.; frightened &c. v.; in fear, in a fright &c. n.; haunted with the fear of &c. n.; afeard[obs3]. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, restless, fidgety; more frightened than hurt. aghast; awe-stricken, horror-stricken, terror-stricken, panic- stricken, awestruck, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... dreaded personage—an old maid. No, she was beset with admirers; some loving her, some her wealth, and some both. To all but one she turned a deaf ear; that one, though the least presuming of the many, and too diffident to urge his claim until impelled by the irresistable violence of his love, possessed, unknown to himself, a magnetic power over the heart of the fair being. Many were the doubts and fears of both—natural ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... diffident and fearful; but it must now find a voice, to which may Evelyn benignly listen. What I leave unsaid—would that my ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... gray mist which covered Fife, the temperature of his heart began to correspond with the atmosphere. While Dundee had always carried himself bravely before men, and had kept his misgivings to himself, and seemed the most indifferent of gay Cavaliers, he had really been a modest and diffident man. From the first he had had grave fears of the success of his cause, and more than doubts about the loyalty of his comrades. He was quite prepared not only for desperate effort, but for final defeat. No man could say he had embarked on the royal service from worldly ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... this same golden age that an overgrown and diffident young man came from an obscure town in Illinois and was given a tryout on the Tribune. He was steady and industrious and ever willing, and they set him to do hotel reporting. He was a failure as a hotel reporter, because the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the right of reading them again, and that he might not know all at once; and when he had read a friend's letter for the second time, he sprang from his seat and cried, "Thank God! thank God! that I am so fortunate as to have such friends!" To his inwardly diffident nature these helps were a real requirement; they served to cheer him, and only those who did not know him called his joy at the reception of praise—conceit; it was, on the contrary, the truest modesty. How often did he sit there, and all that ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... depended upon to meet all the varied conditions which arise in the practice of the day, but I have frequently employed a simple exercise which seems to 'coax' the hand into muscular activity in a very short time. It is so simple that I am diffident about suggesting it. However, elemental processes lead to large structures sometimes. The Egyptian pyramids were built ages before the age of steam and electricity, and scientists are still wondering how those massive stones were ever put ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... taller, slighter, with a prettier, sweeter, and altogether more womanly face, as some people said. A stranger might have thought that she had less character too, but that was not the case. She suffered neither from weakness nor want of decision; but her manner was more diffident, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand |
