| Diffidence, | } |
| Diffidently. |
‘Diffidence’ expresses now a not unbecoming distrust of one’s own self, with only a slight intimation, such as ‘verecundia’ obtained in the silver age of Latin literature, that perhaps this distrust is carried too far; but it was once used for distrust of others, and sometimes for distrust pushed so far as to amount to an entire withholding of all faith from them, being nearly allied to despair; as indeed in The Pilgrim’s Progress Mistress Diffidence is Giant Despair’s wife.
Of the impediments which have been in the affections, the principal whereof hath been despair or diffidence, and the strong apprehension of the difficulty, obscurity, and infiniteness, which belongeth to the invention of knowledge.—Bacon, Of the Interpretation of Nature, c. 19.
Every sin smiles in the first address, and carries light in the face, and honey in the lip; but when we have well drunk, then comes that which is worse, a whip with ten strings, fears and terrors of conscience, and shame and displeasure, and a caitiff disposition, and diffidence in the day of death.—Bishop Taylor, Life of Christ.
That affliction grew heavy upon me, and weighed me down even to a diffidence of God’s mercy.—Donne, Sermons, 1640, vol. i. p. 311.
Mediators were not wanting that endeavoured a renewing of friendship between these two prelates, which the haughtiness, or perhaps the diffidence of Bishop Laud would not accept; a symptom of policy more than of grace, not to trust a reconciled enemy.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, pt. ii. p. 86.
It was far the best course to stand diffidently against each other, with their thoughts in battle array.—Hobbes, Thucydides, b. iii. c. 83.
Digest. Scholars of the seventeenth century often employ a word of their own language in the same latitude which its equivalent possessed in the Greek or the Latin; as though it entered into all the rights of its equivalent, and corresponded with it on all points, because it corresponded in one. Thus ‘coctus’ meaning ‘digested,’ why should not ‘digested’ mean all which ‘coctus’ meant? but one of the meanings of ‘coctus’ is ‘ripened;’ ‘digested’ therefore might be employed in the same sense.
Repentance is like the sun; it produces rich spices in Arabia, it digests the American gold, and melts the snows from the Riphæan mountains.—Bishop Taylor, Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, ch. 10, § 8.
Splendid fires, aromatic spices, rich wines, and well-digested fruits.—Id., Discourse of Friendship.