"Diffidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the exception of a few short-cuts by sharpers and other proscribed gentry, little amendment has been made. Profuseness on the part of the debtor will generally be found to beget confidence on that of the creditor; and, in like manner, diffidence will create mistrust, and mistrust an entire overthrow of the scheme. An unblushing front, and the gift of non chalance, are therefore the best qualifications for a debtor to obtain credit, while poor modesty will be starved in her own littleness. In vain has Juvenal ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... ill-favoured man, closely cropped, with a broad-faced, pock-marked woman on his arm, ruddy with liquor and the satisfaction of being on the brink of a gratified desire. They jocosely saluted the outgoing couple, and went forward in front of Jude and Sue, whose diffidence was increasing. The latter drew back and turned to her lover, her mouth shaping itself like that of a child about to give way ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... her sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her hand ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... The curiosity was as unobtrusive as the diffidence was without fear; and when a villager's soft, low speech was heard, it was generally in answer to inquiries necessary for one to make who was about to assume the high office of educator. Moreover, the schoolmaster revealed, with all gentleness, his ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... home for "a parson's week," so as to include the wedding. He looked very fresh and youthful; but his manner, though still gentle and retiring, had lost all that shrinking diffidence, and had, now, a very suitable grave composure. Everybody was delighted to have him; and Ethel, more than any one, except Margaret. What floods of Cocksmoor histories were poured upon him; and what comparing of notes about his present ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... for Malmsbury in the House of Commons which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as a speaker should have had no unfavourable effect on his success as a politician. In our time, a man of high rank and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his own merits as well as anybody did, he also knew his own imperfections, and estimated them at their real value. For example, his inability to speak in public, which produced the impression of extreme modesty or diffidence, he accepted simply as a fact in his nature which was of little or no consequence, and which he did not even care to conceal. He would not for many years even take the trouble to jot down a few words in advance, so as ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... fair-haired, with dark-blue eyes; and her face, though never beautiful, was made piquant and striking by the fact that her brows were very dark in contrast with her golden hair. Her complexion was not clear, yet her look was a very pleasing one. She had a certain diffidence of manner at first; but later she bore herself with such instinctive dignity as to make her seem majestic, though in fact she was beneath the middle size. At the time of her marriage her figure was slight and graceful; only in after years did she become stout. Altogether, she came to St. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... occurred to me—a suggestion which I put forward with all diffidence—that it would be a wise and practicable step to form a Boer Reservation in the northern districts of the Transvaal (Watersberg and Zoutpansberg). Let them live there as Basutos live in Basutoland, or Indians in Indian territory, or the inhabitants of a ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... come, which change our happiness into discouragement, and our self-confidence into diffidence? One might almost say that the air, the invisible air, is full of unknowable Forces, whose mysterious presence we have to endure. I wake up in the best spirits, with an inclination to sing in my throat. Why? I go down by the side of the water, and suddenly, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... interest in the young Templar, but no more. She now called on Dirck for his lady. Throughout the whole of that day, Dirck's voice had hardly been heard; a reserve that comported well enough with his youth and established diffidence. This appeal, however, seemed suddenly to arouse all that there was of manhood in him; and that was not a little, I can tell the reader, when there was occasion to use it. Dirck's nature was honesty itself; and he felt that the appeal was too direct, and the occasion too serious, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... interest due by the State, and for the appropriation of a special portion of State taxes to meet the obligations thus incurred. He supported his bill in a perfectly characteristic speech, making no effort to evade his share of the responsibility for the crisis, and submitting his views with diffidence to the approval of the Assembly. His plan was not adopted; it was too simple and straightforward, even if it had any other merits, to meet the approval of an assembly intent only upon getting out of immediate embarrassment by means ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... not there, although Jim had tried to get him; but Mike had a curious diffidence about appearing in public. All his power was underground, and all his methods behind the scenes. Squeaks was there to keep an eye on things, and his little bleary, ferret eyes watched each person and detail with ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... forget my tremendous article on 'Judaism,' and that he consequently felt shy and awkward in my presence. He also said that when Joachim had asked him (Bulow) to read one of his compositions, he had inquired with a certain gentle diffidence, whether I should be able to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... voice, that she was glad to see him and that she hoped he was well. He found in her what he had found before—that faint perfume of a personal shyness worn away by contact with the world, but the more perceptible the more closely you approached her. This lingering diffidence seemed to give a peculiar value to what was definite and assured in her manner; it made it seem like an accomplishment, a beautiful talent, something that one might compare to an exquisite touch in a pianist. It was, in fact, Madame de Cintre's "authority," as they say of artists, ...
— The American • Henry James
... No man's life pays the forfeit of our rashness. No desolate widow weeps tears of blood over our ignorance. Scrupulous and sober in a well-grounded distrust of ourselves, we would keep in the port of peace and security; and perhaps in recommending to others something of the same diffidence, we should show ourselves more charitable to their welfare than injurious to ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... approach of a mere player would have given little concern. But Phoebe Wise, better knowing his unrivalled rank, was seized with a violent attack of diffidence, and in an instant she dodged behind the stone seat and sat in hiding with ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the probabilities that lay ahead. Here every one became diffident. They could see the world unified and at peace, but what detail was to follow from that unification they seemed indisposed to discuss. This diffidence struck the king as remarkable. He plunged upon the possibilities of science. All the huge expenditure that had hitherto gone into unproductive naval and military preparations, must now, he declared, place research upon a new footing. 'Where one ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... other in rapid succession, and it was translated into French and German. The work is that of an enthusiast, and it should be read not for its argument, but for its wealth of suggestiveness, and for what Mr. Balfour calls 'a certain quality of moral elevation and speculative diffidence alien both to the literature and the life of the eighteenth century.' Berkeley had himself the profoundest faith in the panacea which he advocated. 'From my representing tar water,' he writes, 'as good for so many things, some, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... true almost." Then, with a quite inexplicable diffidence she faltered, "Uncle Joe, that—that boy asked me to go ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Mildred, when they were alone, "was it mere diffidence, or why was it, that he could not look me in the eyes? I wonder if he is concealing anything. It was in the afternoon and evening that papa was unlike himself yesterday. I wish I really knew whether or not that young man is hiding anything, for I have an impression ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the presence of strangers. They feel these deficiencies keenly. They long, perhaps with an intensity which the naturally self-possessed person will never know, for that social ease which they so greatly admire. Their self-consciousness, diffidence and timidity in the presence of others is very largely the result, first, of a lack of knowledge of themselves and how to make the most of their own good qualities socially; second, of a lack of knowledge of other people. It is a human trait deeply ingrained and going back to the very beginning ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... in a dull way, "that you are not angry with him because he came first to me. It was a sense of duty—I know, I feel—compelled him to do it, together with his honest diffidence about your affection for him. Do not let pride stand in the ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... however, lay more in a pleasant expression than in any special beauty of feature. A little shy, yet without being awkward; and a little grave and silent, but not at all morose, he was one with whom Phoebe felt readily at home. His shyness, which arose from diffidence, not pride, wore off when the first strangeness was over. It was evident that Lady Delawarr had given him, as she had said, a hint ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... perceive the result of certain events (causes), and thus helps him in being prepared to meet them. This meaning is suggestive, though we translate it as knowledge, or foreknowledge rather, with the greatest diffidence. The eighth word is quite clear. That inward feeling which tells a man that he knows this or that, that he has or can do certain things—is perception and consciousness. It is the inner conviction, knowledge and its possession. The ninth word is again one which has retained its meaning and has been ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Mr. Brander," said Jennie, all her diffidence dissolved by sympathy. "This is the gentleman from ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... helped me to dress, repeating at least half a dozen times, 'You never had on the like of that before.' They held a consultation of several minutes over a pair of coarse woollen stockings, gabbling Erse as fast as their tongues could move, and looked as if uncertain what to do: at last, with great diffidence, they offered them to me, adding, as before, that I had never worn 'the like of them.' When we entered the house we had been not a little glad to see a fowl stewing in barley-broth; and now when the wettest of our clothes were stripped off, began again to recollect that we were hungry, and asked ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... Humility, Organic Sensibility, Relaxation, etc., are its natural accompaniments; hence it will be found most abundantly in those classes of society which are most remarkable for refinement, sensitiveness, modesty, diffidence, humility, or submissiveness, disease, languor, debility, and intellectual excitement. Religious excitement, love, mirthfulness, thoughtfulness, imagination, benevolence, sympathy, sincerity, faith, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... companions in the little Eddy-Street lodging house, about the drifters of the Latin quarter. They quite eclipsed the pale youth who was playing escort to Eleanor, and the substantial person in the insurance business who seemed to be responsible for Kate Waddington. Heath, speaking with a little diffidence and lack of assurance, had twice the wit, twice the eye for things, twice the illumination of Bertram Chester; yet it was the latter who brought laughter and attention. His personality, which surrounded him like an aroma, his smile, his trick of the ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... there was little of diffidence or gentleness in my warring, and my wooing is like to have a touch of the same quality. It is useless to struggle for I have thee firm, so take to yourself some of that ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... agitation was-very great; he stood by a table and, taking up some small object that lay upon it, he found his hand trembling so that he was obliged to lay it down." It was desirable, certainly, that something should occur to break the spell of a diffidence that might justly be called morbid. There is another little sentence dropped by Mr. Lathrop in relation to this period of Hawthorne's life, which appears to me worth quoting, though I am by no means sure that it will seem ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... billiard-marker; denied the devotion of the barmaid (with charming paradox so-called); for us who make poor braggarts, and often prefer to surrender rather than to elbow for our rights; for us who deliver our opinions with mean-spirited diffidence, and are men of quiet voices and ways: for us there is hope. It may be that to love one's neighbour is also a part of manhood, to suffer quietly for another as true a piece of bravery as to fell him for a careless word; it may be that purity, constancy, and ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... speaks out, as if forgetting himself, or rather, losing himself in some truth under contemplation. Sometimes he will ask a question that wakes up both class and professor; but at other times it seems difficult to pierce the shell of his reserve or diffidence. And yet, from little things I have seen, I know that he has a good warm heart; and the working of his mind in the recitation-room fascinates me. Further than this I know little about him, but have just learned, from his explanation as to his unexpected appearance at our door, that he is very ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... does NARES reject Gifford's corruption of this word into charm, nor will the suffrage of the "clever" old commentator one jot contribute to dispel their diffidence of this change, whom the severe discipline of many years' study, and the daily access of accumulating knowledge, have schooled into a wholesome sense of their extreme fallibility in such matters. Without adding any comment, I now quote, for the inspection of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... than you can be told how to hit a ball with a bat. It is something that must be lived through, and all advice on the subject has just about the value of an answer to a bashful young man who begged from one of our woman's periodicals help in overcoming the diffidence felt on entering a crowded room. The reply read: "Cultivate an easy, graceful manner." In like case I might hypothecate, "To go light, discard all ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... to see her again as she had been in the happiest moments of the past, and to feel that, Hicks being out of her world, her trust of everybody in it was perfect once more. She treated that interval of coldness and diffidence as all women know how to treat a thing which they wish not to have been; and Staniford, a man on whom no pleasing art of her sex was ever lost, admired and gratefully accepted the effect of this. He fell luxuriously into the old habits ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... added to the report of his judgment and virtue, and to the impression made upon her by his eloquence, confirmed the favourable opinion with which his first, appearance had inspired Antonia. She replied with diffidence, but without restraint: She feared not to relate to him all her little sorrows, all her little fears and anxieties; and She thanked him for his goodness with all the genuine warmth which favours ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... hearty in your reception of guests; and where you see much diffidence, assist the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... hints we have determined to venture upon, though we do so with the profoundest diffidence. Firstly we would remark that as some of the lowest of the vertebrata attained a far greater size than has descended to their more highly organised living representatives, so a diminution in the size of machines has often attended their development and progress. Take ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... partly responsible for that; physical development clinched the affair, I was in all respects mature at thirteen, though my courage (to use the word in Chaucer's sense) was not equal to my ability. I had more than usual diffidence against me, more than usual reserve; and self-consciousness, from which I have only lately escaped, grew upon me ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... Collins, painted by himself, the very picture of most sensitive nervousness. Well—Collins waited upon Sir Joshua, who gave him a picture to copy for him in miniature. Collins took it, and trembled, and looked all diffidence as he examined Sir Joshua's original. However, he took it home with him, and after some time came to Cumberland in great agitation, expressing a conviction that he never could copy it, that he had destroyed three attempts, and this, said he, is the best I can do, and I will destroy it. This Cumberland ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... tell the truth, it is an adventurous attempt from memory. I saw you play Silvia, madam; I was so charmed, that I came every night. I took your face home with me—forgive my presumption, madam—and I produced this faint adumbration, which I expose with diffidence." ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... he adduces the strongest arguments for and against any object of consideration, that the (65) most penetrating understanding can suggest, weighs them with each other, and draws from them the most rational conclusions, he yet discovers such a diffidence in his own opinion, that he resigns himself implicitly to the judgment and direction of his friend; a modesty not very compatible with the disposition of the arrogant, who are commonly tenacious of their own opinion, particularly in what relates to any decision ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... literary fancy for Don Quixote, for Scott's poems and romances she encouraged, quietly eliminating the dime novels he had read indiscriminately with these. She broke through the shell of his shyness to find out that his diffidence was not sulkiness nor his ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... It is with diffidence that we would suggest any thing upon a work that has so nearly exhausted criticism; but we will venture an observation, and if we are correct, the glory of the subject is heightened by its adoption. It has ever appeared to us to have purposed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... there's a will there's a way" is a proverb, the truth of which Hans Egede very soon began to exemplify. Not least among this good man's difficulties seemed to be his modesty, for he was troubled with "extreme diffidence and the fear of ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... him helplessly. She wanted to ask him to call at her house on Sunday, but felt a sudden diffidence. After all, why should he care to call on her? He had more important things to think of; and doubtless he spent his few leisure hours with some woman far more brilliant than herself. Her head came down a trifle and she turned it away. He stood there ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... rapidly absorbing both its present civilisation and its past history. He was unsmilingly amused at the comments of mixed shrewdness and crudity which Lemuel was betrayed into at times beyond certain limits of diffidence that he had apparently set himself; at his blunders and misconceptions, at the truth divined by the very innocence of his youth and inexperience. He found out that Lemuel had not been at home since he came ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... with Smoke he was always absurdly gentle; also he was fatherly; and at the same time betrayed a certain diffidence or shyness. He recognized that Smoke called for strong yet respectful management. The cat's circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate pretences perhaps shocked the dog's liking for direct, undisguised action. Yet, while ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... I awoke to much diffidence, even to a feeling that might be called the beginnings of panic, and lay for hours in my bed considering the situation. Seek where I pleased, there was nothing to encourage me and plenty to appal. They kept a close watch about the cottage; they had a beast of a watch-dog—at least, unless ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can; but that's not all. I'm not in Lawrence's debt alone," Foster answered with some diffidence. "I came over here, a stranger, ignorant of your ideas and customs, and you made me welcome. Of course, if I had jarred you, you wouldn't have let me know; but ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... towns, and escape. Lawrence was freely merry. At times Claire was caught in his gaiety, but more and more often he noticed that she was quiet. He attributed her silences at first to the charming strain of diffidence he had learned to know as part of this woman, but gradually he grew fearful lest ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... failed," he said; "but something must be ascribed to my own awkward diffidence; for there is so much meanness in tampering with a servant, that I had not the heart to push my questions, even while I am devoured ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... His own diffidence was not his only vexation. He that asks a subscription soon finds that he has enemies. All who do not encourage him, defame him. He that wants money will rather be thought angry than poor; and he that wishes to save his money conceals his avarice by his malice. Addison had hinted his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... called "a go-ahead" young person. She was domestic in her tastes, and, for her years, could make herself very useful about the house when she chose. Now, therefore, she had no diffidence about her ability to carry out her undertaking. And Larry, although he frequently reminded her that she did not know everything, had a ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... hills with her, and run down them again over the snow hand in hand with her. But as he drew nigh the great pile, which grew as he approached it, his heart sank within him. His head began to ache: a strange diffidence seized him; he could not go up to the door. He would not mind, he said to himself, if Joan would be there the moment the door opened. But would any servant in England admit a fellow like him to the presence of a grand lady? How could he walk up to the great door in the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... propriety demand or perhaps admit. These dispositions will be still less proper, if you should feel them in the extent your modesty leads you to express them. You have certainly given by far too strong a proof of self-diffidence by asking the opinion of a man circumstanced as I am, on the important subject of your letter. You are far more capable of forming just conceptions upon it than I can be. However, since you are pleased to command me to lay before you my thoughts, as materials upon ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... prince, or a beauty. If he has not very good sense (and indeed there are twenty men of wit for one man of sense), his living thus in a course of flattery may put him in no small danger of becoming a coxcomb: if he has, he will consequently have so much diffidence as not to reap any great satisfaction from his praise; since, if it be given to his face, it can scarce be distinguished from flattery, and if in his absence, it is hard to be certain of it. Were he sure to be commended by the best and most knowing, he is ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... suggested not without some degree of hesitation and diffidence. If there be a soul in man destined to continued existence, and if in any case perfection is the goal of evolution as formulated by Herbert Spencer for a future residue of the human race, then this soul in its essential elements is ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... you, after all. I'll just step out into the cold air, and see if I can harden my cheek for that interview. Your diffidence is infectious, Maxwell." ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... before us, and we stretch our hands to clasp them and they are gone. I came here yesterday for two or three days. The house is full of the young generation. They don't attract me .... Whatever their faults, diffidence is not one of them. Macaulay's doctrine of the natural superiority of each new generation to its predecessor seems most heartily accepted and believed. The superb pictures in the house are a silent protest against the cant ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... empty doorway for a space, shrugged, and returned to his ledgers. The uncanny directness of those gray eyes, the absence of diffidence, the beauty of the face in profile (full, it seemed a little too broad to make for perfect beauty), the mellow voice that came full and free, without hesitance, all combined to mark her as the most unusual young woman he had ever met. He was ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... Degree is expressive of the diffidence and humility with which we inquire into the nature and attributes of the Deity; the second, of the profound awe and reverence with which we contemplate His glories; and the third, of the sorrow with which we reflect upon our insufficient observance of our duties, and our ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... human heart, and therefore should always speak with caution and diffidence, when from external appearances or declarations we are affirming the existence of any internal principles and feelings; especially as we are liable to be misled by the ambiguities of language, or by the inaccuracy with which others may express themselves. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... does it argue, I say, but thy diffidence of God? and that thou countest salvation safer in thine own righteousness, than in the righteousness of God; and that thy own love to, and care of thy own soul, is far greater, and so much better, than is the care and love of God. And is this to keep the first table; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I must speak with the diffidence becoming to the ignorant; but it seems to me to consist of two elements and to contain an inspirational art as direct and as simple as that of poetry, and a science so difficult that its fullest mastery ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... had a wife, and her name was Diffidence. So when he was gone to bed, he told his wife what he had done; to-wit, that he had taken a couple of prisoners and cast them into his dungeon, for trespassing on his grounds. Then he asked her also what he had best to do further ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... lightning rods, and several other travelling salesmen. I'm afraid my conversation was consciously modelled along the line of what the Professor would have said if he had been there, but at any rate I got along swimmingly. The travelling men, after a moment or two of embarrassed diffidence, treated me quite as one of themselves and asked me about my "line" with interest. I described what I was doing and they all said they envied me my freedom to come and go independently of trains. We talked cheerfully for a long time, and almost without ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... on," he said. "I want to get a little sea air into my lungs now." He asked, with a sort of breezy diffidence, if I would go with him. I was glad to do so. It flashed across my mind that yonder on the terrace he might suddenly blurt out: "I say, look here, don't think me awfully impertinent, but this money's no earthly use to me. I do wish you'd accept it as a very small return for all ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... applause was well earned, for probably there is no duller or more monotonous work than that of attending Boards which never declare dividends. He next appeared at the farmers' club, at first as a mere spectator, and next, though with evident diffidence, as a speaker. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... the ability of the professors, speaks with diffidence of his power as a writer, (the world has in this respect done him justice;) but that he had come not unprepared upon the subject of art, having reflected much upon his own and the opinions of others. He found in the art many precepts and rules, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... or considerably more than one-half of the latter, signed their names with marks. 'I have also a personal knowledge of this fact—that of 47 men employed upon a railway in this immediate neighbourhood, only 14 men can sign their names in the receipt of their wages; and this not because of any diffidence on their part, but positively because they cannot write.' And only lately, the Leeds Mercury itself gave a most striking instance of ignorance among persons from Boeotian Pudsey: of 12 witnesses, 'all of respectable appearance, examined before the Mayor of Bradford at the ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... advanced slowly toward him and sat down on the other end of the bench. Once Pollyanna would have danced unhesitatingly to the man's side and suggested acquaintanceship with a cheery confidence that had no doubt of a welcome; but recent rebuffs had filled her with unaccustomed diffidence. Covertly she ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... bank-bill; but the paper that inclosed it was blank: and that Clarke, unable to go immediately to work, and reflecting on what he had heard from me concerning the destitute state in which I, a stranger in Bath, was left by the robbery of my servant, had walked out the next day, had come with fear and diffidence to enquire after me, and that, finding me in a high fever, his wife had ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... permit me to begin by reminding you that I am only a boy, and that this is my first experience of actual warfare; therefore if I venture to express an opinion on what has been justly described as a most momentous question, I do so with the utmost diffidence. At the same time, although I have had no previous experience of war, I should like to say that I have studied the subject deeply and with intense interest. And it is with equal interest that I have listened to the expression ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... Boroughstoness, but as there might be prying eyes there, and Watt wished to do his work in privacy, determined "not to puff," he at length fixed upon an outhouse still standing, close behind the mansion, by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the subject of remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his anxiety seemed quite painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful nature was his mainstay throughout. Watt himself was ready ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... again, and voyaged far; and now that I have come back again to the little island with all its thickets, I wish to retrace in thought, if I can, some of the adventures which befell me, and what they brought me, and to speak too of adventures which I missed, either out of diffidence or folly. I am not at all sure whether Hermes, whom I certainly encountered, ever gave me a plant of Moly, or, if I did indeed receive it, what use I made of it. But I knew others who certainly had the herb at their hearts, and as certainly others ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... upon here. Faith is trust, trust in a Person, trust that, like the fabled goddess rising, radiant and aspiring to the heavens, out of the roll of the tempestuous ocean, springs from the depths of absolute self-distrust and diffidence. There is a spurious kind of faith which has no good in it, just because it did not begin with going down into the depths of one's own heart, and finding out how rotten and hopeless everything was there. My friend, no man has a vigorous Christian faith who has not been very near utter ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... continues, people are talking about one of the maids of honor, respecting whom various slanderous reports are being circulated. These vague phrases have not allowed me to sleep. I have been deploring, ever since yesterday, that my diffidence and vacillation of purpose should, notwithstanding a certain obstinacy of character I may possess, have left me unable to reply to these insinuations. In a word, therefore, M. de Wardes was setting off for Paris, and I did not delay ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... induced by actual and arduous service, concealed the manners of gentlemen. Consequently, the interruption to the domestic privacy of the family was marked by the observance of strict decorum. The ladies left the table to their guests, who proceeded, without much superfluous diffidence, to do proper honors to the hospitality of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... altogether unpleasant to hear these professions of diffidence in himself, and I endeavoured to turn off his attention from all other sources of consolation than that of the "Comforter, which is ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... given my Sentiments upon the Question proposed; which I should not have venturd to do had it not been requested. I have done it with the greatest Diffidence because I think I am fully sensible of my Inability to enter into a Question of so delicate a Nature & great Importance especially as I have not had that opportunity to consult my friends which I promisd my self. I hope the Assembly of Rhode Island will ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... matter of business. "I'll give you a home, if you'll take care of my children." "It's a bargain," is the way most second matches are made. There is little of the poetry of first-love, and little of the coyness and shrinking diffidence which characterize the first attachment. Still these remarks apply almost equally to a second attachment, as ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... and the moment he saw me he appeared to wish to go away rather than to arrest me. We then recognised that we were mutually afraid of each other, and therefore came together with a certain amount of diffidence ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... party; I am a BOURGEOIS now; I am to write a weekly paper for Scribner's, at a scale of payment which makes my teeth ache for shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to you; for we were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he said he had had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while, perhaps, to get in tow with the ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spring?" said the Prince, stopping in his walk. "What am I to call it? Diffidence? The fear of ridicule? Inverted vanity? What matter names, if it has brought me to this? I could never bear to be bustling about nothing; I was ashamed of this toy kingdom from the first; I could not tolerate that people should fancy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for stupidity was only diffidence. Toni's brain, though not so highly specialized as his own, was a very capable, quick organ all the same; and in the lonely, dreary months of her absence Owen had learned to value at their true worth the precious ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... homely monosyllable they themselves derive from togati, on account of their wearing the toga—had they not better trace their origin at once from that mysterious and secret society of the Thugs of India? But their internal economy should be treated with diffidence, for between them and the oppidans there was ever an undefined, though "great gulf fixed." Owing to this, there is a difficulty in deciding how much, if any, of the following incident may be authentic. As asserted above, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... spoils of the cities of Euboea. We behold the consul and his legions, at the distance of a small tract of sea, overrunning Phocis and Locris. You were surprised at Philip's ambassador, Cleomedon, showing such diffidence yesterday in his application to us to take arms on the side of the king against the Romans. But if we, in pursuance of the same treaty and oath, the sacredness of which he inculcated on us, were to ask of him, that Philip should protect us, both from Nabis and his ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... Mill," inquired my grandfather with diffidence, for his heart was so stung with what he heard, that he could scarcely feign the necessary hypocrisy which the peril he stood in required—"Is this Mill in ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... when she saw that Paul indeed slept deeply, she rose stealthily and crept from the place back to the room, the gloomy vast room within, where she summoned Dmitry, and ordered the man she had called Vasili the night before into her presence. He came with cringing diffidence, prostrating himself to the ground before her, and kissing the hem of her dress, mute adoration in his dark eyes, like those of a faithful dog—a great scar showing blue on his bronzed ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... latter subject, however, he threw out hints which were broad enough, and did not wholly shun the controversial sphere of metaphysics. The critic who would avoid the heights and depths of mysticism would do well to imitate his reserve, and exceed him in metaphysical diffidence. ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... to begin with; just got into Committee on Home-Rule Bill; CHARLIE (my DARLING) was to have opened Debate with Amendment on first line of First Clause; but, as he subsequently explained to sympathetic Committee, he was weighed down with feeling of diffidence. House, touched with this unusual weakness on part of Member for Deptford, readily accepted volunteered service of CHAMBERLAIN, who undertook to say a few words on another ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... to remedy this defect that this book is offered, with much diffidence, and with many thanks to Mr. C.R.L. Fletcher of Magdalen College, Oxford, for his valuable assistance in revising the proof sheets, and to the Rev. A.H. Johnson of All Souls for some very ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents. Importance of other society. Necessity of society. Early diffidence. Selecting companions. Moral effects of society on the young. Parents ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... on arriving there it was with a slightly palpitating heart I ascended the noble steps of her residence. The Countess met us graciously, and by her vivacity and charming candor dispelled the feeling of modest diffidence as to our merits, naturally awakened by the thought of being presented to those illustrious persons who so long held sway over ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... fire grate. Some little time after he repented of this act of rudeness, collected the fragments, pasted them together, and begged his mother's forgiveness. This damaged plan or map is still in existence. His extraordinary diffidence and shrinking from all forms of praise or exaltation was thus revealed at a comparatively early stage of his career, and in connection with the first deeds that made him famous. The incident just described shows that his way of asserting his individuality ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... that some other had been found to undertake the cause; nothing but the apprehension of its being lost induced me to acquiesce in Mr. Bull's request. I entertain such strong opinions on the matter that I did not dare, as a Christian, to let my diffidence, or love of ease, prevail over the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... rigid integrity, and as many as among their instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity. The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded with great diffidence." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... the pacers, and looked curiously at Andy. Twice he started to speak and did not finish. Then: "A man can be a sure-enough rider, and get careless and let a horse pile him off him when he ain't looking, just because he knows he can ride that horse," he said with a certain diffidence. ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... been away at his own place at Bezselendyevka: he had been laid up with a severe cold. Masha's conduct was consequently even more unexpected for him; it made almost a deeper impression on him than on Tchertop-hanov himself. With his natural sweetness and diffidence, he gave utterance to nothing but the tenderest sympathy with his friend, and the most painful perplexity... but it crushed and made havoc of everything in him. 'She has torn the heart out of me,' ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... admissible; but it is impossible not to perceive the weakness of those who judge these matters legibly written in the phrase, "and for his various other communications," which comes in as the frequent tail-piece to these awards. With a diffidence in their own powers, which might be more admired if it were more frequently expressed, the Council think to escape through this loop-hole, should the propriety of their judgment on the main point be called in question. Thus, even the discovery which made chemistry a science, has attached ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage |
