"Shyness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... size of home range may result from the use of different methods and from insufficient data. The data obtained from live-trapping are not fully adequate because traps cannot sample, in time and space, the entire home range of an individual. Also, "trap habit" or "trap shyness" may distort the apparent shape of the home range. In order to compare these methods I have calculated home range from my data by each of five different methods. The results are shown ...
— Home Range and Movements of the Eastern Cottontail in Kansas • Donald W. Janes
... grey-beard whom one of the young women addressed as her grandfather. All fears however, Bertram flattered himself, should have been dispersed immediately by his appearance and the gentleness of his demeanour: much therefore it perplexed him to observe after the lapse of some time that the shyness and something like displeasure, which had at first clouded the faces of his fair friends, seemed in no degree to give way before his amiable looks and manners. The children in particular, he remarked, regarded him with eyes of dislike, and rejected all his advances. ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... conservative, clung to the ways of their parents. This was partly due to inheritance—mother and father were New Englanders—and partly to a reserved quality, a timid shyness, that marked Lorry who, as Aunt Ellen ceased to exert her thought processes and relapsed into a peaceful torpor, had assumed the reins of government. They conformed to none of those innovations which had come ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... form and feature, but with a depth of colour in his face that betokened the coming on of the habits of the sot. His Sunday hat was in his hand, and he smoothed the long nap of it, as he said, with a mixture of shyness and familiarity— ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... holiday closed with a voyage that both were able to enjoy to the utmost before they sailed into the harbour at Dearport, and walked up to St. Faith's. Captain Audley, who had not seen Sister Constance since her husband's death, had an access of shyness and would not encounter the 'Lady Abbess,' as he called her; but his last words to Felix were a promise that if Bernard went to Stoneborough, he would have him out now and then for a ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... float above as clouds. It is eminently the hour to see objects, just after the sun has disappeared. Oh, such oxygen as we inhale! Often other skaters appear,—young men and boys,—who principally interest me as foils to my husband, who, in the presence of nature, loses all shyness, and moves regally like a king. One afternoon, Mr. Emerson and Mr. Thoreau went with him down the river. Henry Thoreau is an experienced skater, and was figuring dithyrambic dances and Bacchic leaps on the ice—very remarkable, but very ugly, methought. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... bellicose and amorous of adventure, and more than all other nations has a tendency to clothe its patrimonial ardour of defence in beautiful terms and gallant attitudes. This is one of the points on which the British race, with its scrupulous reserve, often almost its affectation of self-depreciating shyness, differs most widely from the French, and is most in need of sympathetic imagination in dealing with a noble ally whose methods are not necessarily the same as ours. It is difficult to fancy a young English lieutenant ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... so retiring in private," she declared, gayly. "He was one of our happy family for three months last summer and we never noticed any shyness; did ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... football or cricket; nevertheless we did our best in the meadow at the bottom of the garden, our scanty numbers being eked out by Mr. and Mrs. Windlesham's five girls. They were nice, kind people, and, when the first shyness had worn off, I settled down happily at Castlemore. During the next three uneventful years I received occasional visits from Captain Knowlton, while I grew greatly in stature, and, it is to be hoped, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... a very amiable disposition sound sense and all the qualities that can be given by a careful education. She is liked by all at court, and is spoken of as a model of gentleness and kindness. She has a fine bearing, yet it is perfectly simple; she is modest without shyness; she can converse very well in many languages, and combines affability with dignity. As she acquires familiarity with the world, which is all very new to her, her fine qualities will doubtless develop further, and endow her whole being with even more grace ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... is much anecdotage: most of the anecdotes turn on his shyness, his really exaggerated hatred of personal notoriety, and the odd and brusque things which he would say when alarmed by effusive strangers. It has not seemed worth while to repeat more than one or two of these legends, nor have I sought outside the Biography ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... questions frankly enough, but Madame de Ruth observed with satisfaction that she told only such things as all the world might hear. There were no outbursts of girlish confidences, no indiscreet questions; she was mistress of the situation, and if she showed any shyness, it was never either awkward or foolish, but seemed merely a delightful youthful attribute, an added charm. Her hostess felt a deepening interest. This girl would be a more potent factor in the intrigues for which they had destined her than they had dreamed. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... sweetheart, that we, in our unabashed simplicity, would pass for two very wide-awake little scandal-mongers. What lessons may be conveyed in a finger on the lips, in a word, a look! All in a moment I was seized with excessive shyness. What! may I never again speak of the natural pleasure I feel in the exercise of dancing? "How then," I said to myself, "about ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... sacred nightgowns and diminutive shirts. The next morning, when I opened the door of the nursery where her maid was brushing her hair, the same dignity radiated from the little round figure perched on its high chair, the same almost hostile shyness gazed at me from the great expressive eyes. Obviously, it was time ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... The tender contemplation of my inspiring eyes is for him alone; they weigh on his bent head, until the look I'm calling searches and meets mine in a shock of souls, so foreseen and so sweet, that I must needs close my lids to hide the exquisite shyness I feel. ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... say any of this aloud, but it was not pride that kept him from the avowal, only a very natural and reasonable shyness of talking about himself. He stopped rocking, and sat with his gaze fixed on the trees in the distance, without really seeing them a bit. A new feeling of half-dismayed contrition was springing up in his heart, but the bitterness of resentment and the sense of injury ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... Billy met Marguerite Winthrop that evening. At the outset there was just a bit of shyness and constraint in the young wife's manner. Billy could not forget her old insane jealousy of this beautiful girl with the envied name of Marguerite. But it was for only a moment, and soon she ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and then would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity. If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young person of no ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... statement—(because if it was quite as bad as you say, you know, I never should have seen you ... and I have!) and also for yours ... because you take such a very preposterously wrong way for overcoming anybody's shyness. Do you know, I have laughed ... really laughed at your letter. No—it has not been so bad. I have seen you at every visit, as well as I could with both eyes wide open—only that by a supernatural influence they won't stay open ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... he is quite at his ease, and makes love freely. When fairly caught, he discovers that the supposed "inn" is a private house, and the supposed barmaid is the squire's daughter; but the ice of his shyness being broken, he has no longer any difficulty in loving according to his station.—Goldsmith, She Stoops to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of course I never tried to avoid him. The first sight on which his eyes fell was a victoria pulled up before the hotel door, in which I sat with no sentiment I can remember now but that of some slight shyness. He got in without a moment's hesitation, his friendly glance took me in from head to foot and (such was his peculiar gift) gave me ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... sincerity and dignity of Mr. Grierson's soul I cannot kneel down with him and take part in the performance of his prayer. Prayer is either the Supreme Illusion, or the Supreme Act, the pure and naked surrender to Reality, and attended by such sacredness and shyness that you can accomplish it only when alone or lost in a multitude ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... Zelie!" cried Aleck, and there came a sudden lull as they scrambled to their feet. Jim was the only one she did not know, and for some reason the sight of this slender young woman in black, with a white rose in her dress, caused him a fit of unusual shyness. Ikey himself could not have been more abashed than he was when ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... return to the rendezvous on the after boat-deck. Something held her back—an emotion of shyness new to her. But on Saturday afternoon, Dan ran the blockade of the after companion-way, penetrated brazenly to the first-class promenade, joined her where she stood leaning against the rail, and led her away resolutely to a ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... manners, strictly forbade any communication with the schoolboys. Sometimes in after days, speaking of these early times and of the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. Barbauld used to attribute to this early formal training something of the hesitation and shyness which troubled her and never entirely wore off. She does not seem to have been in any great harmony with her mother. One could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid and dutiful, and yet strong-willed, ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... had a wild-rose prettiness, I thought, when I saw her at Oxford. She looked like a lily till I spoke to her, and then flamed like a red rose. So fresh, so easily startled. 'Tis pity that shyness of youthful purity wears off in a week. I dare swear by this time Mrs. Kirkland is as brazen as the boldest of our young houris yonder," with a glance in the direction of the maids of honour, the Queen's ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... the creature within shot. Taking up one of the grouse, he flung it out upon the snow some thirty yards from the fire. No sooner had he done so, than the owl, at sight of the tempting morsel, left aside both its shyness and prudence, and sailed gently forward; then, hovering for a moment over the ground, hooked the grouse upon its claws, and was about to carry it off, when a bullet from Lucien's rifle, just in the "nick of time," put a stop to its further ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... women and children were gathered about to listen, their shyness overcome by their torturing anxiety for news. They made one think of women in war-time, listening to the roar of distant guns and waiting for the bringing in of the wounded. Hal saw Bob and Dicky glance now and then at the ring of faces about them; they ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... diversion, except when playing at home among her father's possessions or making a visit to Kitty, being found in the books of fairy-tales which the old hunchback, Tim Kelsey, had lent her. At first this natural shyness had held her aloof even from O'Day, content only to watch his face as he answered her childish appeals. But before the first week had passed she had slipped her hand into his, and before the month was over her arms were around his neck, her fresh, soft cheek ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... liberated from the schoolroom, she would have liked to go to picture-galleries, attend concerts, and mix with interesting people; in spite of her shyness and gentleness, she had plenty of mind and character, and Malcolm had already cultivated her artistic tastes. One summer, indeed, they had gone abroad, and Malcolm had been with them, and for two months Anna felt they had been ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... any successor to the J.D.C. I described how I watched the boys leaving school today—a solitary figure, clad in the latest fashion, moodily pacing the Hammersmith Road—and asked myself "where among these is the girlish gush of a Bentley—the passionate volubility of a Vernede, the half-ethereal shyness of a Fordham?!!" I admitted that we had had misfortunes, one of us had a serious illness, another had had a very good story in the Strand Magazine: but I thought that a debating club of 12 members that had given three presidents to the University Unions, had not done badly. The rest was sentimental. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... fifty yards was the extreme deadly range of the hunter's weapons, wild creatures were comparatively tame. The advent of the rifle and of the lawless skin hunter soon turned all big game into fugitives of excessive shyness and wariness. One glimpse of a man half a mile off, or a whiff of him on the breeze, was enough to make a Mountain Ram or a Wolf run for miles, though formerly these creatures would have gazed serenely from a point ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... bearer of this is the son of an old friend. One of the most agreeable young men I ever saw. As modest as he is well educated, and I can't say more. Procure him some amusement, that a little of his shyness may be rubbed off; and forward his fortunes, my dear friend, as far as you can ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... of living fishes is most entertaining and is rendered somewhat difficult by the medium in which they live, by their {108} shyness, and by the necessity of approaching closely in order to obtain any accurate view. The spawning, feeding, swimming and other habits of very few of our fishes are so well known that further information thereon is ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... character, ought to have the satisfaction of knowing that they have it, both as a reward and as an encouragement. They write, that you are not only 'decrotte,' but tolerably well-bred; and that the English crust of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness (of which, by the bye, you had your share) is pretty well rubbed off. I am most heartily glad of it; for, as I have often told you, those lesser talents, of an engaging, insinuating manner, an easy good-breeding, a genteel behavior ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... its self-sufficiency—of individuals whose consequence grows neither out of manners, intellectual endowments, superior taste, nor polished connections—and of inhabitants of a metropolis, among whom shyness of intercourse is necessary as a security against imposture—it is not to be wondered that most of the showy mansions in these villages are points of repulsion rather than of attraction. It must, however, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... head of a big "stock and station" firm. Some one else clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to meet his banker; behind them towered half a dozen old squatter friends, with fellow clubmen, all trying at once to get hold of his hand. David Linton's constitutional shyness melted in the heartiness of their greeting. Beyond them Norah seemed to be the centre of a mass of girls, one of whom presently detached herself, and came to him. He said in amazement, "Why, it's Jean Yorke—and grown up!" and actually kissed her, to ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... youngest of the party, Laura was the least embarrassed: she had never known a nursery, but had mixed with her elders since her babyhood. And she was not of a shy disposition; indeed, she still had to be reminded daily that shyness was expected of her. So she sat and looked about her. It was an interesting room in which she found herself. Low bookshelves, three shelves high, ran round the walls, and on the top shelf were many outlandish ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... first arrival at Parinacochas we were left severely alone by the shepherds; but two days later curiosity slowly overcame their shyness, and a group of young shepherds and shepherdesses gradually brought their grazing flocks nearer and nearer the camp, in order to gaze stealthily on these strange visitors, who lived in a cloth house, actually moved over the forbidding waters of ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... to Herzl that he would have to take an active part in the task he had set forth in "The Jewish State." He no longer felt that he stood alone. He was not inclined to appear on a public platform. He had the shyness of the man who had always written what he had to say. He also felt that it would do more harm than good if his ideas were to be obscured by his personal presence. Through correspondence he set in motion Zionist activities—in London, in Paris, in Berlin, ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... with some shyness, as if feeling that one older than himself might smile at the romantic wildness of his fancy. But this my Lord Dunstanwolde did not, understanding him full well, and lying a hand on his pressed ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... are—honest. But after all, there's no real dishonesty if you do good work. And I think"—there was a sudden return to her old shyness—"I think, if you win out, your great reward will be the good work ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... relieved. Still later the frequent disturbed cries of coot, heron, and marsh-hen, recognizing the presence of unusual invaders of their solitude, distracted her yet more, and forced her at last with increasing color and an uneasy sense of shyness to steal out to the gallery for a swift furtive survey of the Marsh. But an utterly unexpected sight met her eyes, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the noble old Lady Astrida, and the reception of the Barons who had come in the train of their Lord. Richard was bidden to greet them, but, though he held out his hand as desired, he shrank a little to his father's side, gazing at them in dread and shyness. ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a deep breath. "Yes, that's it. That's what it meant. I felt it." And then, as though with a sudden shyness at her self-revelation, she glanced about. "What a pretty place! I've ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... at no one as she passed along on her husband's arm; but he interpreted this to be not shyness nor self-consciousness, but rather a sort of instinct against giving any one that opportunity of looking into ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... maddening joy pounded in his brain. Jeanne's voice came to him sweetly, with a shyness in it that made him feel like a boy. He was glad that the night concealed his face. He would have given worlds to have ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... think my profession would have cured me of being shy, but not a bit. Nervous disease, of course! Ought to be treated as such. Almost universal. Besides, even if he is shy, your governor—even if he's a hundredfold shy, that's no reason for keeping out of England. Shyness is not one of those diseases you can ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... Warwick, to whose son he had been tutor and his promotion to be Secretary of State did not contribute to his happiness. His wife appears to have been arrogant and imperious; his step-son the Earl was a rake and unfriendly to him; while in his public capacity his invincible shyness made him of little use in Parliament. He resigned his office in 1718, and, after a period of ill-health, d. at Holland House, June 17, 1719, in his 48th year. Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote a ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... child—the last daughter of the ever-beautiful Rothesay line—which Elspie led to claim the paternal embrace. Olive looked up at her father with her wistful, pensive eyes, in which was no childish shyness—only wonder. He met them with a gaze of frenzied unbelief. Then his fingers clutched his wife's arm with the grasp ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... "Good-day"? I should have heard her voice—no doubt an additional charm—for I never yet saw a beautiful woman with a harsh voice; and I fear the inverse proposition is equally true. Why passed I without speaking? No doubt, she deems me a yokel! Perhaps it was my very shyness she was smiling at? S'death! what a simpleton—Ho! what do I hear? A woman's voice—a cry?—of terror? There again!—a scream! the words, "Help, oh! help!" Is it she who is calling? Yes—yes it is she! By such strange sounds were my reflections interrupted. Turning my horse with a wrench, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... out and explore the town, if only for a little way. To-morrow was Sunday, and all the stores would be closed. But Manasseh was too busy to come with him for bodyguard—and his father's boots were off; and besides, he stood in great awe and shyness of his admired parent. Had the boots been on, it would have cost him a bold effort to make the request. On the whole, the cordial warming him, Master Dicky had a mind to ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "Jason, listen. We are close to Carthon, the others can lead them the rest of the way. Why go back to them at all? Slip away now and never go back! We can—" she stopped, coloring fiercely, that sudden and terrifying shyness overcoming her again, and at last she said in a whisper, "Darkover is a wide world, Jason. Big enough for us to hide in. I don't believe they would search ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... 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 giving him a piece of gold, desired he would let his assistant accompany her home with two of his best wallets. The man was pleased with her generosity, and selecting his choicest manufacture, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... certain shyness prohibited him from entering the dining-room in which he heard Madge, Eliz, and the stranger talking French together. He betook himself to the library, to the Letters of the Portuguese Nun and an easy-chair. They might oust him with severity, but it was as well to enjoy a short interval ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... above as clouds. It is eminently the hour to see objects, just after the sun has disappeared. Oh, such oxygen as we inhale! After other skaters appear,—young men and boys,—who principally interest me as foils to my husband, who, in the presence of nature, loses all shyness and moves regally like a king. One afternoon Mr. Emerson and Mr. Thoreau went with him down the river. Henry Thoreau is an experienced skater, and was figuring dithyrambic dances and Bacchic leaps on the ice,—very remarkable, but very ugly methought. Next him followed Mr. Hawthorne, who, wrapped ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... bundle and ran after him. He was small, stiff in his movements and evidently had very little strength. She soon caught up with him and knocked his hat off to induce him to stop. He really wished to do so, but he was confused with shyness and fled with still greater speed. She ran after him and began to pull at his game-bag. Then he had to stop to defend it. She fell upon him with all her strength. They fought, and she threw him to the ground. "Now he will not speak of it to any ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... she do to make Miss Quincy feel at ease? The girl certainly had brains and character. Dick had told them of her brave bearing of burdens. This stiff back and this silence were but the tribute of shyness to new surroundings. So ran Mrs. Lenox's swift thoughts and she set herself to make Lena talk about the things with which she was familiar, to link her past ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... fifty pounds a year, and three years later was transferred to the Colonial Secretary's Office at two hundred pounds a year. During this period he read extensively, and wrote much verse. By 1867 he had so far overcome his natural shyness that he undertook to deliver a series of lectures at the Sydney School of Arts. One of these, on "Love, Courtship and Marriage", precipitated him into experience of all three; for he walked home after the lecture with Miss Charlotte Rutter, daughter of a Government medical ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... Auckland. Bonfires blazed on the ranges, guns were fired, and a procession of boats escorted theirs home. As a strictly bachelor community, we felt some hesitation about going to call and congratulate the couple. This was owing to our own shyness and uncouthness, you understand, not to any disfavour with which we looked upon matrimony as an abstract thing. For we were previously unacquainted with the bride. However, some demon prompted us to give them ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... elementary process of keeping step, and despite his youthful proficiency as a jockey, the regulation seat of the dragoon, to be acquired on the back of a rough cavalry trooper, was an accomplishment which he never mastered. If it be added that his shyness never thawed, that he was habitually silent, it is hardly surprising to find that he had few intimates at the Academy. Caring nothing for the opinion of others, and tolerant of association rather than seeking it, his self-contained nature asked neither ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... spirit of satire, had in it two or three men of real gift. Forbes himself was a man of uncommon vivacity. Small, stocky, with an unruly thatch of yellow hair and a quaintly wry and homely face, he hid his shyness and his brilliancy behind a brusque manner. Ostensibly cynical and a witty satirist of his more sentimental fellows, his desk was full of charming ballades and pieces d'amour, scratched off at white ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... a morose or unhappy man. On the contrary, he seems to have been a very happy one, full of generous and kindly feelings, and finding only a strange pleasure where others would have found bitterness and cynicism. Like the melancholy Jacques, he might have said of his pensive shyness, "It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects; ... which, by often rumination, wraps me in ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... think she's purty," protested the boy with a quick palpitant shyness, "an' most people l——," he stopped trying to talk, laughing brusquely and flushing with ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... when it was alluded to before, a red flush dyed the face of Hamish. Certainly, it could not be a flush of guilt, while that ingenuous smile hovered on his lips. But Hamish seemed attacked with sudden shyness. "Your refusal to satisfy me on this point, when we previously spoke of it, tended to confirm my suspicions," continued Mr. Huntley. "I think you might make a confidant of me, Hamish. That money could not have dropped from the clouds; and I am sure you possessed ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... by shyness, had nothing to do with this brisk interchange. She walked between the contestants like a child out with her betters. Senhouse led them down the scarped side of a hill into his own valley; rounding a bluff, they suddenly came upon ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... was rewarded by the sight of a tall young man who lifted down a little girl about Molly's age, a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked little girl, prettily dressed, and in no way suggesting a wild Indian. The instant Molly saw her, she was seized with a fit of shyness and could not follow her first impulse to rush forward. Instead she waited where she was till the two ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... to meet a woman! Her picture was in his pocket, in his brain, in his blood. A vast shyness, coming to consternation, seized him. He felt a sense of personal guilt; and yet a feeling of indignity and injustice claimed him. But all this and all his sullen anger was wiped out in this great shyness of a man not used to facing women. Sim Gage was product of a womanless ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... arrived, she played hostess with an alluring mixture of shyness and happy importance, capping his lively sallies with the quick wit of old days. And when Suraj was announced—"Oh, please—may I see him?" she begged eagerly ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... slender lad, dark-haired and dark-eyed, ruddy and embrowned by mountain sun and air; and the bow with which he bent before her had something of the rustic lout, and there was a certain shyness over him that ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heart-burnings and griefs, her sudden despairs and eager hopes, her tempestuous angers, took place in the bottom of her heart. She would have been as dismayed at the thought of others seeing them as she would have been at the thought of being discovered unclothed. Shyness and pride combined to make her hide her innermost feelings so that no one should venture to offer ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... the personal qualities that endeared him to his intimate friends. I always detected in his life a certain undefined loneliness. The scholar's shyness and the isolation of his exalted position hardly account for it. A humanistic scholar in a University where the practical departments were making greatest progress, engrossed in his intellectual interests in the solitude of ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... very white, with soft, dark hair rippling away from it. Certainly, she had moments of beauty. She talked very little; perhaps because she hadn't the chance to talk—living, as she did, with an aunt who monopolized the conversation. She had no close friends;—her shyness was so often mistaken for hauteur, that she did not inspire friendship in women of her own age, and Mrs. Newbolt's elderly acquaintances were merely condescending to her, and gave her good advice; so ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... hasten with her work, she insisted upon an immediate advance. Glenmore readily supported her position. Pratt developed shyness. His forte was hiking over desert hills, lugging a transit, running lines or levels; he felt out of place as a fighter, or even an accuser. Nevertheless, he ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... incongruity of a Greek Hermes in the central hall of Madame Tussaud's waxwork exhibition. Fascinated, she strayed down the line toward him. She halted, looked for a second or two into a pair of liquid black eyes and then blushed in agonized shyness. She stared at the beautiful boy, and the beautiful boy stared at her, and not a word could she find in her head to speak. She turned abruptly and moved away. The boy broke rank and ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... mentioned; no one, except the good old duke, who was simplicity itself, ever spoke of her to me; but by the way he welcomed me I guessed that his daughter had privately commended me to his care. At the moment when I was beginning to overcome the foolish wonder and shyness which besets a young man at his first entrance into the great world, and to realize the pleasures it could give through the resources it offers to ambition, just, too, as I was beginning to make use ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... she left London, Herminia thought to herself she had never seen her child look so absolutely lovely. The unwonted union of blue eyes with that olive-gray skin gave a tinge of wayward shyness to her girlish beauty. The golden locks had ripened to nut-brown, but still caught stray gleams of nestling sunlight. 'Twas with a foreboding regret that Herminia kissed Dolly on both peach-bloom cheeks at parting. She almost ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... gleam in the lovely baroness's eyes. Then she came nearer to Herr Bernat, and asked with womanly shyness: "And you ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... ill at ease, attributed it to shyness or perhaps awe of the Colonel, who was, as Max put it, "a bit impressive till a fellow knew him," and tried to help matters by talking nonsense that amazed Win and evidently amused the Colonel. Gradually, as he saw that Max was not ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... path, and for the moment the boy was forgotten. She welcomed him with the cordiality of old friendship. There was genuine pleasure in her smile, there was hearty welcome in her eyes, and in the soft, warm grip of her strong young hand, but that was all. There was no shyness, no avoiding the honest devotion in his look. The radiant hope shining in his clear, dark eyes was not for her understanding. The unusual care in his dress, the neatly polished boots under his leather chaps, the creamy whiteness of his cotton shirt, the store creases of the new silk handkerchief ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... a silly child," she said. "Of course you will feel strange just at first, but you will soon get over your shyness. It will be quite a fresh world for you, and a very interesting one. I expect to have the most enthusiastic letters from you when you have been there for ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... fine figure. Her eyes are blue, and their clear, candid expression indicates an unusually sincere and simple character. But, unfortunately, it is only her friends who are fully conversant with the expression of her eyes, for she is very shy. Shyness in little people is frequently piquant, but its effect in girls of the Juno style is too often that of awkwardness. Her friends call Maud Elliott stately; those who do not like her call her stiff; while indifferent persons speak of her as rather too reserved and dignified in manner to be ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... and, finding that his friend hung back, went out again and half led, half pushed him indoors. Mr. Bell's shyness he attributed to his having lived so long ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... to keep them from trembling. What would they think of her? She saw that they were smartly dressed. Doubtless they were very grand and clever indeed, and would think her more trying than ever. But although all her shyness threatened for a moment, it was summarily routed ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the door of the kitchen and ushered the visitor in. Mrs. Burton was making a batch of bread, and had to limit her welcome to cheery words and smiles; but the twins immediately claimed him as an old friend, rushing upon him with a freedom from shyness which was surprising, until one knew that they were never troubled ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... will make her an excellent husband. She will not be so foolish as to reject such a disinterested affection. Besides," he added, hesitating a little, "I have a very shrewd notion that all this apparent indifference is only shyness on my little girl's part, and that ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number of English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when they do occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them; for your Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American whalers; regarding ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... went into peals of laughter. And from that moment I ceased to exist as the bright particular star in Mr. Gibson's firmament of eligible young men: for in spite of the kink in my nose, and my stolid gravity, which was really and merely the result of my shyness, he had always looked upon me as an exceptionally presentable, proper, and goodly youth, and a most exemplary—that is, if my sister was to be trusted in the matter; for she ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... our presents behind our backs and tried to remain unobserved by the door. The whole effect of a surprise, upon which we had been counting, was entirely lost. When at last every one had made the sign of the cross I became intolerably oppressed with a sudden, invincible, and deadly attack of shyness, so that the courage to, offer my present completely failed me. I hid myself behind Karl Ivanitch, who solemnly congratulated Grandmamma and, transferring his box from his right hand to his left, presented it to her. Then he withdrew a ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... that beats here?' she said, and with a shyness in adventurousness, she struck the point of her forefinger on the rib. 'Fancy me in love with a flint! And running to be dutiful to a Jacob Blathenoy, at my flint's command. I'm half in love with doing what I hate, because this cold thing here bids me do it. I believe ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the exercise of studious tact in ingratiating myself in his friendship and confidence; he talked with freedom of his feelings and his affairs; and although he had not yet admitted me to the knowledge of his past, he evinced but little shyness in speaking of the present. At our interviews in his tent I seldom met his wife; indeed, I suspected him of contriving to keep her out of the way; for I was always told she had just stepped out;—or if by chance I found her there, she was never again vulgarly loquacious, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... become accustomed. She rather relished the hard, manual labour, to which she applied herself with full energy. But her baby was a stranger to her, cried when she wished to take her up, and became only gradually accustomed to her. Her faculties had been sharpened, too; she felt a certain shyness in her husband, noticed his weaknesses, and was deeply hurt when, on the second evening after her return, he went to the inn, "so that people should not say he was under her thumb." Then, Hansei, coaxed by the shrewd innkeeper, had set his heart upon acquiring the inn, now that they had "wealth," ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... now to attack him, having already given them a trial of his strength; alluding to what he had already done to them at Calicut. The enemy continued to hover off at sea, but did not venture to come nearer than a league, though they seemed in fighting order. Seeing this shyness, the general weighed anchor, and went out with all his fleet against them, having on board the two nayres who were hostages for the factory on shore, but his intentions were to have returned with them to Cochin. Soon after leaving the harbour, a great storm ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... with the three in turn. All were out-doors men, bronzed, diffident with the social shyness of men who live their lives alone or among none but alien people. Lindsey and Cochran were square-set, serious young men: Casey, older, ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... Mary, trying in her turn to stop him, with English shyness about tender topics. But he took the soft hand in his, and proudly surveying the one ring it wore, went on with the air of an admiral aboard ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... gave little credit to his professions.—Some people coming in on business to her father, and saying they would wait till he came home, obliged Natura to take his leave for that time, well satisfied in his mind, that he had declared himself, and not much doubting, but that in spite of this first shyness, she would easily be prevailed upon to correspond with his desires, when his perseverance in them, should have assured ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... and excitedly now, throwing off all shyness and reserve. Blakeney was forced to check her vehemence, which might have been thought "suspicious" by ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... buy. These three are clad very magnificently in kimonos of silk crape, very soft, and brilliantly coloured, with huge coloured sashes. Their little heads, with straight all-round fringes of black hair sticking out like brushes, are deliciously comic. They regard us gravely and without any fear or shyness. ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... his extreme simplicity... The first time I had seen him was in a hall in Brussels, when he opened the Great Exhibition in royal state, in the presence of many princes and ministers and all his Court. Even then it seemed to me he had a look of sadness—it may have been no more than shyness—as though the shadow of some approaching tragedy touched his spirit. I spoke of it at the time to a friend of mine and he smiled at the foolishness ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the Lizard arrived; and my patients being all fit for duty, they and I were ordered on board of her, where I understood from Mr. Tomlins that there was a shyness between the lieutenant and him on my account; the rancorous villain having taken the opportunity of my absence to fill the captain's ears with a thousand scandalous stories to my prejudice; among other things affirming, that I had been once transported for theft, and that when ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... had shining black hair, over which she had flung the most coquettish sort of lace shawl they call a rebosa. Her eyes were large, dark, and expressive; and she constantly used them most provocatively, though with every appearance of shyness and modesty. Her figure, too, was lithe and rounded; and so swathed, rather than clothed, that every curve was emphasized. I suppose this effect was the result of the Spanish mode rather than of individual sophistication; just as the ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... with their visitor, who interrupted the even course of their studies and "made fools," as she considered, of Miss Davis and Nell. She thought Hetty's pretentiousness became greater and greater as her first slight shyness wore away and she grew perfectly familiar with every one in the house. Phyllis was sufficiently generous to refrain from complaining of Hetty to her mother or father, but she privately found fault with Nell for encouraging her ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... illness from which he had risen with a weak spine, and ever-working brain, and a quiet heart, he had shown himself not merely a good sort of man, for such he had always been, but a religious man; not by saying much, for he was modest even to shyness with grown people, but by the solemnity of his look when a great word was spoken, by his unblamable behaviour, and by the readiness with which he would lend or give of his small earnings to his poor neighbours. The only thing of which anybody could complain was his temper; but it showed itself ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... corner, dressed in black coats that had something of the antiquity of heirlooms, talked all night among themselves in Gaelic. The young girl beside me lost her shyness after a while, and let me point out the features of the country that were beginning to appear through the dawn as we drew nearer Dublin. She was delighted with the shadows of the trees—trees are rare in Connaught—and ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... to by all classes, and the J. B. Riley ward of the institution served to remind us of one who, by his charity, goodness and generosity, was a good man, but whose shyness did not allow of this being known. His brother, Mr. F. W. Riley, and Mr. R. L. Chirnside, who were closely associated with him, carried on his good work, ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... welcomed the stranger most cordially in French, and was still more bewitched by the retiring shyness of his modest demeanor. As the jailer retired, a wink signified his desire to commune with me apart in his office, where I learned that the new comer had been arrested under a charge of counterfeiting, but on account of his genteel appearance ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... spoke to me of the King's want of energy, but always in terms expressive of her veneration for his virtues and her attachment to himself.—"The King," said she, "is not a coward; he possesses abundance of passive courage, but he is overwhelmed by an awkward shyness, a mistrust of himself, which proceeds from his education as much as from his disposition. He is afraid to command, and, above all things, dreads speaking to assembled numbers. He lived like a child, and always ill at ease under the eyes ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... from a trustworthy source. He was said to be undersized, red-haired, and somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outside tallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He is a shy man. Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface, but the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders to see that it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine and beautiful nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read the Uncle Remus book; and a fine genius, too, as all know by the same sign. I seem to be talking ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it is easy enough," she answered. "He took my hand, and I permitted him to hold it for a moment, then withdrew it, you know, as though impelled by modesty. After duly hanging my head and casting down my eyes in a very spasm of shyness, I told the king that I hoped he would accept the French king's offer, and reminded him that it might avert the terrible consequences of war, in addition to putting ten thousand pounds in my poor empty little purse. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... terror of every Ragusan (only mention the word and he will cross himself)—and here on a fine Sunday morning you may see Dalmatians, Albanians, and Herzegovinians in their gaudiest finery, while here and there a wild-eyed Montenegrin, armed to the teeth, surveys the gay scene with a scowl, of shyness rather ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... years of his school-teaching at Jasper Mackenzie slowly grew out of his extreme rawness of appearance. His legs hardened from long rambles over the hills, his face browned like an outdoor man's, his rustic appearance, his clabber-days shyness, all slowly dissolved away. But the school board was not cognizant of any physical or mental strengthening in him. He was worth sixty dollars a month to that slow-thinking body when he came to Jasper; he was worth no more than sixty ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... Howel's last injunction to the best of her ability. Her youth and beauty were greatly in her favour, and her affectation covered the shyness and awkwardness that she felt in being suddenly thrown amongst people upon whom she had formerly looked with awe. The Nugents were there, but the Gwynnes were absent, and she had the pleasure of feeling that she had as many, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... supposed to be hereditary; but it is not so. Any puppy can be cured of gun-shyness in half a dozen short lessons. Sir Henry Smith's advice is to get your puppy accustomed to the sound and sight of a gun being fired, first at a distance and gradually nearer and nearer, until he knows that no harm will come to him. Companionship ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... food was provided for it, which it pecked up without the least shyness. Since then it has established itself on a very firm clawing, if I may use the term, as a necessary inmate of the house. Fluttering through the passages it follows the maids from room to room in the morning and shows the most lively interest in their work while ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... them besides the weeds, and stones?" asked Nat; so interested, he forgot his shyness and spoke ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... events, as an old oak trembling and exposed to the wind of the plain, when the forest which surrounded and supported it has been destroyed. Yes!" cried De Thou, growing animated, "this aim is a fine and noble one. Go on in your course with a resolute step; expel even that secret shame, that shyness, which a noble soul experiences before it can resolve upon flattering—upon paying what the world calls its court. Alas, kings are accustomed to these continual expressions of false admiration for them! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hospitable; but there is much less visiting even among themselves, and much less of constant reception of strangers in their homes, than with us. Habit, lack of wealth, lack of trained servants, and a certain proud shyness, and in some cases indifference and a lack of vitality which welcomes the trouble of being host, account for this. No doubt, too, the old habit of economy remains even when there is no longer the same necessity for it, and saving and ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... this miracle, the young man turned to Sally. Gallant, one might say reckless, as he had been a moment before, he now gave indications of a rather pleasing shyness. He braced himself with that painful air of effort which announces to the world that an Englishman is about to speak a ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... example influenced the captains immediately behind him cannot certainly be affirmed. Such shyness as he displayed is not only infectious, but saps that indispensable basis upon which military effectiveness reposes, namely, the certainty of co-operation and support, derived from mutual confidence, inspired by military discipline, obedience, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... few days, however, our shyness and strangeness wore off. We no longer sang with the soldiers, but segregated ourselves into congenial groups; and under the electric lights the promenade deck looked, for all the world, like the piazza of a ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... interruption in the early part of it though, from a pleasant visitor; and I have not been able to look rightly at your pretty little book. Nevertheless, I'm quite sure your strength is in private letter writing, and that a curious kind of shyness prevents your doing yourself justice in print. You might also surely have found a more pregnant ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... a smile or a sound. That ceremony over, they charged down upon me in an avalanche of gaiety. They waved their lanterns, they called banzai, they laughed and sung some of the old time foolish songs we used to sing. They promptly put to rout all legends of their excessive modesty and shyness. They were just young and girlish. Plain happy. Eager and sweet in their generous welcome. It warmed every fiber of my being. When they thinned out a little, I saw at the other end of the platform a figure flying towards me, with the sleeves ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... half-frozen sleet, joined in its descent by gutters from the house-tops, comes driving full in your face, blinding you to all external objects—on one of these blessed evenings, on my road to Camden Town, I chanced to miss my way, and was compelled, notwithstanding a certain shyness towards strangers, to ask my direction of the first respectable person I should meet. Many passed me by, but none sufficiently prepossessing; when, on turning down some nameless street that leads ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... been oppressing it for some time, and set his heart at rest. Egan, it must be remarked, was an odd mixture of courage and cowardice: undaunted by personal danger, but strangely timorous where moral courage was required. A remarkable shyness, too, made him hesitate constantly in the utterance of a word which might explain away any difficulty in which he chanced to find himself; and this helped to keep his tongue tied in the matter where Larry Hogan had continued to make himself ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... he said that after we left the room a good deal of his shyness wore off, and that he conversed pleasantly and well. Above all, he ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... had terminated, now that he was no longer a director and the representative of her employers, she should take him on trust simply as a friend. He was prepared to answer protests, to offer compromises—concessions to appearances. He'd expected her to exhibit some shyness of the taxi. According to his unconscious ideal of the situation she should have looked questioningly at him—hesitated, and then let him assure her that it was all right. She should have gasped a little when the car turned south in the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... loyalty had always been with effort. Therefore, when—the strain relaxed—they met her again, they were intensely conscious of her freedom and of their own resultant liberty. This produced in them, when with her, a restraint and shyness which Myra naturally construed into a confirmation of her own suspicions. She, having never found it the smallest effort to remember she was Michael's, and to be faithful in every thought to him, was quite unconscious ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... think we should meet so soon, Signor Grandi. But I am very glad." There was a sweet shyness in the little speech that touched me. I am sure she was afraid that it was not yet quite right, or at least that there should be some other ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... of it. Fact is, my dear Summerhays, once childhood is over, once the little animal has got past the stage at which it acquires what you might call a sense of decency, it's all up with the relation between parent and child. You cant get over the fearful shyness of it. ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... Chateaubriand (cited by Paulhan, Rev. Philos., March, 1898, p. 237) is a typical description of the situation: "The warmth of my (adolescent) imagination, my shyness, and solitude, caused me, instead of casting myself on something without, to fall back upon myself. Wanting a real object, I evoked through the power of my desires, a phantom, which thenceforth never left me; I made ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... yesterday," Theron replied. His earlier shyness had worn off, and he felt comfortably at his ease. "I don't know," he went on, "that the word 'genuine' is just what would have occurred to me to describe the Soulsbys. They are very interesting people, as you say—MOST interesting—and ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic |
