"Diffident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from all that I had heard of Mr. Hawthorne's shyness, I thought it doubtful if he would call, and I was therefore very much pleased when his card was sent in this morning. Mr. Hawthorne was more chatty than I had expected, but not any more diffident. He remained about five minutes, during which time he took his hat from the table and put it back once a minute, brushing it each time. The engravings in the books are much like him. He is not handsome, but looks as the author of his books should look; ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Featherstone. Goldsmith accordingly rode up to what he supposed to be an inn, ordered his horse to be taken to the stable, walked into the parlor, seated himself by the fire, and demanded what he could have for supper. On ordinary occasions he was diffident and even awkward in his manners, but here he was "at ease in his inn," and felt called upon to show his manhood and enact the experienced traveler. His person was by no means calculated to play off his pretensions, for he was short and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an air and carriage by no ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... her a preeminence so natural and human, that beauty was in truth the only word that fitted her. Now, as the Dean passed on from her to some one else, she glanced down at the little figure in terra-cotta satin, and, with a kindly diffident expression, she sat down and began to talk to Lucy. Marcia Wellesdon was a sorceress, and could win whatever hearts she pleased. In a few moments she so soothed Lucy's nervousness that she even beguiled from her some bright and natural talk about the journey and the house, and Lucy ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... picnic, in the studio, and then she had walked away with Arabian. She had just left him when she met Craven in the hall of the hotel. Garstin had not allowed either her or Arabian to look at what he had done. He had, Miss Van Tuyn thought, seemed unusually nervous and diffident about his work. She did not know how he had gone on, and was curious. But she was going to dine with him that night. Perhaps he would tell her then, or perhaps he had only asked her to dinner that she might tell him ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... father naturally revised my work. The first article, all my own, which appeared in print was one on that notorious theatrical institution, the Claque. I sent it to Once a Week, which E. S. Dallas then edited, and knowing that he was well acquainted with my father, and feeling very diffident respecting the merits of what I had written, I assumed a nom de plume ("Charles Ludhurst") for the occasion, Needless to say that I was delighted when I saw the article in print, and yet more so when I received ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
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