"Mincing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laughs at you, you foolish, plain, overdressed, mincing, cheaply-organized, self-saturated young person, whoever you may be, now reading this,—little thinking you are what I describe, and in blissful unconsciousness that you are destined to the lingering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... the girl aside and spoke rapidly in French to his companion. Then with mincing agility he stepped ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... to; we understand that. But tell me! Bluntly, without mincing matters, if necessary. You know that I have no objection to that sort of thing, so go on. Do not keep me in suspense like this. I am burning with curiosity. What does ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... with the Fair Maid in ballast to look for a freight in the Sofala's port of registry, and her letter met him there. Its tenor was that it was no use mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening a boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged, were good. Good enough, at any rate, to make her tell him frankly that with two hundred pounds she could make a start. He had torn ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... were suited to the galligaskin. She was a true disciple of Maltre Francois, hating nothing so much as mincing obscenity, and if she flavoured her discourse with many a blasphemous quip, the blasphemy was 'not so malicious as customary.' Like the blood she was, she loved good ale and wine; and she regarded it among her proudest titles to renown that she was ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... between a mincing and lackadaisical young lady and a bouncing one who talked noisily; and she changed her attitudes, her accent, the expressions of her face in such droll ways, and altogether contrasted the two characters so well, that a round of applause and laughter greeted and encouraged her. Then followed a ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... enraged scorn even undertook a grotesque and mincing imitation of the peacocking aforesaid. 'Let goo!' muttered Louie between her shut teeth, and with a wild strength she at last flung off her aunt and sprang for the door. But Hannah was too quick for her and put her back against it. 'No—yo'll not goo till your ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mincing of words. The Gayety is a mere adjunct to the Poodle-Dog saloon and the gambling hell up-stairs. They are so closely connected that on the stage last evening I could easily hear the click of ivory chips and the clatter ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... herself—isn't that the phrase? I hope the reverse now; that she and her husband will philander along to the close of the chapter. But I prefer your word,—to the close of the "comedy," say. It implies something artificial. Mallinson and Clarice give me that impression,—as of Watteau figures mincing a gavotte, and made more unreal by the juxtaposition of a man. Let's hope they will never perceive the flimsiness of their pretty bows and ribbons! But I think of your one o'clock in the morning of the masquerade ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... them horses,' says he, in his mincing way (for Londoners are mostly all tongue-tied, and can't say their a's and i's properly, 'and it's our business to keep you from molesting the ladies and gentlemen going to ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the train we might meet—just accidentally run into one another. And you'll say, 'Why, there's Mr. Mayer! How odd. How d'ye do, Mr. Mayer.'" He bowed with a mincing imitation of Chrystie's best society manner. "'I didn't expect ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... for she carried the family follies several degrees farther than Miss Emmeline. Taken altogether, she was an absurd compound. Personally, she was thoroughly American, very pretty and delicate in form and features, and thus far appeared to great advantage; but she had, also, an affected mincing manner, and drawling voice. Of course, her dress was as Parisian as possible; everything she wore was a faithful copy from "Le Courier des Dames." Her feelings and opinions; Mrs. Hilson was proud ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the more widespread was the floe. Beyond—hauling down the Spotted Horses, which lay in the open—the proportion of new ice would be vastly greater. At a trot for the time over the pans, which were flat, and in delicate, mincing little spurts across the bending ice, Doctor Rolfe proceeded. In a confidence that was somewhat ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... Oh, you New Yorkers! You think we are nothing—fit, perhaps, for a May-pole frolic with the rustic gentry! Do not deny it, Mr. Renault. Have we not heard you on the subject? Do not your officers from Philadelphia and New York come mincing and tiptoeing through Halifax and Quebec, all smiling and staring about, quizzing glasses raised? And—'Very pretty! monstrous charming! spike me, but the ladies powder here!' And, 'Is this green grass? Damme, where's the snow—and the polar ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... not. I wish I could say I was! It is very horrid, I know, but where's the good of mincing matters? If I did not call the thing by its name, the thing would be just the same. You know, people in our world have to do as they must; they can't pick and choose like you happy creatures. I dare say, now, you are engaged to a young man you love with all your ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... was! There was Mr. Bentley—that was mild. And there never was a hold-up of a western express that could compare to the Consolidated Tractions. Some of these big fellows have the same kind of brain as the professional thieves. Well, they are professional thieves —what's the use of mincing matters! They never try the same game twice. Mr. Parr's getting ready to make another big haul right now. I know, because Plimpton said as much, although he didn't confide in me what this particular piece of rascality is. He knows better." Phil ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the cowboy appeared, mincing in on his high-heeled boots, his silver spurs jingling, the fringe of his chaps impacting softly on the leather. He stood at ease, his broad hat in both hands, his dark, level brows ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... there be something very slow and pianissimo for the hors d'oeuvres: something gentle and soothing for the oysters; there can be an indication of heartiness in the melody that ushers in the soup, as though giving it a warm welcome. There should be a mincing minuet-like movement for the entrees, a sparkling air for the champagne, and something robust for the joint. A sporting tune for the game: sweet melody for the sweets, and a grand and grateful Chorale—a kind of thanksgiving service as it were—when the last ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... when the julep appeared on a silver tray, he left the room and went upstairs to where Betty was waiting. "He's awful, there's no use mincing words, he's simply awful," he remarked in an ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... expostulation (there was jealousy of the Duke of Newcastle's favour already under the coals): in short the nephew earl called the favourite earl such gross names, that it was well they were ministers! otherwise, as Mincing says, "I vow, I believe they must have fit." The public, that is half-a-dozen toad-eaters, have great hopes that the present unfavourable posture of affairs in America will tend to cement this breach, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... for Shelley is not at all what will look nicest in his song; that is the preoccupation of mincing rhymesters, whose well is soon dry. Shelley's abundance has a more generous source; it springs from his passion for picturing what would be best, not in the picture, but in the world. Hence, when he feels he has pictured or divined ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... stung, and was about to turn furiously upon the boy, under the impression that he was the nigger in question; but at the same moment he caught sight of a full-blooded, woolly-headed West Coast African leading a very large camel by a rope, the great ungainly beast mincing and blinking as it gently put down, one after the other, its soft, spongy feet, which seemed to spread out on the gravelled road, while their high-shouldered owner kept on turning its bird-like head from side to side, muttering and whining discontentedly, as if objecting to be seen by such an elongated ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... of Grace's apprenticeship to what she was determined to learn in spite of it—a consequence of one of those sudden surprises which confront everybody bent upon turning over a new leaf. She had finished her lunch, which he saw had been a very mincing performance; and he brought her out of the house as soon ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... heard the quaver of Miss Bessy Dicky's voice over the club report; but he saw and heard nothing, and now he was seated in the midst of the feminine throng, and Miss Bessy Dicky's voice quavered more, and she assumed a slightly mincing attitude. Her thin hands trembled more, the hot, red spots on her thin cheeks deepened. Reading the club reports before the minister was an epoch in an epochless life, but Karl von Rosen was oblivious of her except as a disturbing element ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... hours earlier he had been mincing among the elect and the select and the intellectual and the poetic and the aristocratic; among the lah-di-dah and Kensingtonian accents; among rouged lips and blue hose and fixed simperings; in the centre of the universe. And he had ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... think that this great force for evil should be swayed by the same sentiment that sets a lassie mincing to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... This last feature of degradation had developed itself in Isaiah's day; and he attacks it with a strange combination of humour and moral indignation: "Because the daughters of Jerusalem are haughty, and walk with outstretched neck and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a tinkling with their feet, therefore ... the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls and their round tires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... choosing her mate! Some mincing artificer, I trow, fiddling away with wood and wire to make gauds for the fair-day! Hast got him here? If I like him, and she likes him, I'll bring her back when her work ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his prejudice made a last rally. He muttered something about Ned's being a nice boy if he were not so "airy;" always "fussing about his clothes and talking in a mincing way—just like ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... but awful, as Pope says—approach "with mincing steps and bow profound;" we are about to introduce you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... no mincing and begging institution. It has, at its disposal, the entire military battery. No mayor holds a whip handle over it. I must confess I was happy as I witnessed the blessed effect of this Moral Department. All evil is not extirpated, neither is all lawlessness overcome, but there ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... suit the taste of those who will eat the sausages. If young pork is used, remove the skin as thinly as you can—it is useful for various purposes—and then with a sharp knife cut all the flesh from the bones, take away all sinew and gristle, and cut the fat and lean into strips. Some mincing-machines require the meat longer than others; for Kent's Combination, cut it into pieces about an inch long and half-an-inch thick. To each pound of meat put half a gill of gravy made from the bones, ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... wife of Karlsberger—a bulky slattern, who kept shuffling in and out with plates and glasses—perceived his need, and placed a stool for him. Through confusion and annoyance he caught nothing of the conversation till Elias, in a mincing voice, announced: ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... You surely would not have us a couple of mincing girls peacocking round in this fashion, would you now?' And the captain's boys affectedly pirouetted up and down on the shingle below the low wall of the Vicarage garden, laughing ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... mincing matters. At this very moment Reginald might be standing defenceless within, with his last chance of liberty slipping from ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... her room, and sat now, in the centre of it, staring toward the garden. Noon had crept upon it, devouring all shadow. Her eyes saw little but the golden blur. A fusuma opened softly, and two women, Mata and the attendant seamstress, came mincing and smirking toward her, each with an armful of white silk. Ume rose like an automaton. They began her toilet, talking the while in low voices. They robed her in white with a thin lining-edge of crimson, and threw over her shining ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... lately to frighten any quiet gentleman out of his senses. I'll not get a wink of sleep, I fear, for a week to come. There must have been something dreadful upon Sir Piers's mind; sure—nay, there's no use in mincing the matter with you—in a word, then, some crime too deep to ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... required some polite observation, he spoke in a high-pitched voice of the balmy weather and the sweet profusion of birds and flowers, when there was more like to be a "sweet profusion" of Indians; and I nigh stifled with laughter to see this lumbering, free-voiced forest-runner transformed to a mincing, anxious, backwoods macaroni at the ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... within the house I found my deare and sweet love Fotis mincing of meat and making pottage for her master and mistresse, the Cupboord was all set with wines, and I thought I smelled the savor of some dainty meats: she had about her middle a white and clean apron, and shee was girded about her body under the paps with a swathell of red silke, and she stirred ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... my fingers. Well, I waited most impatiently for her appearance, and at last saw her coming; and what d'ye think she'd gone back for? By the powers, for her doll, which she held in her hand! And just as she came to the chaise, who should come round the corner but her father, who had walked from Mincing Lane. He caught my mincing Miss by the arm, with her doll and her bundle, and bundled her home, leaving me and the postchaise, looking like two fools. I never could see her again, or ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... virtuous; some are unlearn'd, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learn'd. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook are several men, and distinguished from each other, as much as the mincing Lady Prioress and the broad-speaking gap-tooth'd Wife of Bath. But enough of this: there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. 'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... were down in the blubber-room cutting the "blanket-pieces", as the largest masses are called, others were pitching the smaller pieces on deck, where they were seized by two men who stood near a block of wood, called a "horse", with a mincing knife, to slash the junks so as to make them melt easily. These were then thrown into the melting-pots by one of the mates, who kept feeding the fires with such "scraps" of blubber as remain after the oil is taken out. Once the fires were fairly ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... not mincing words to-night. I do not talk of taking the lands from the Indians by crooked methods. You all know the law. An Indian may not sell the lands allotted to him. I want you to send me to Congress to change that law. I want the Indian to be able ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... with their hand luggage, trooped down the long dock to the Lanawaxa's boarding-plank. Heavy Stone turned suddenly in the hot sunshine (for it was a glowing noon) to find two of the smaller girls mincing along in ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... living, at present, on that widow Hardyng. How are those two to get through the winter, I should like to know? As for the child, it will have to be bound out to somebody who will make it work, and then there will be an end of all these mincing lady airs. One thing I know, it's out of our power to help them. She must have some relations somewhere, I should think. I wonder what her antecedents really are, any way. I could never quite ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... explain our theory: An animal which has been at rest in his stable is taken out to work, and it will be presently noticed that there is something unusual in his movement. His gait is changed, and he travels with short, mincing steps, without any of his accustomed ease and freedom. This may continue until his return to the stable, and then, after being placed in his stall, he will be noticed shifting his weight from side to side and from one leg to another, continuing the movement until rupture of the bony ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... '75, across the Styx! Make way for stately '76, Who comes with mincing, minuet pace, Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face— An antiquated kerchief on: White-capped, like Martha Washington; Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod, To give no Nineteenth Century nod; Nay, but a courtesy profound, Whose look demure consults the ground. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... nothing of the sort," he said. "She believes herself to be serving her country." He was speaking very slowly, almost mincing his words. "She has—has ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... audience urged the chairman by acclamation to extend Martin's time. They appreciated him as a foeman worthy of their intellect, and they listened intently, following every word. He spoke with fire and conviction, mincing no words in his attack upon the slaves and their morality and tactics and frankly alluding to his hearers as the slaves in question. He quoted Spencer and Malthus, and enunciated the biological ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... student quarters come many of the cleverest and most beautiful songs. Here men sing their own creations, and they have absolute license to sing or say what they please; there is no mincing of words, and many times these rare bohemians do not take the trouble to hide their clever songs and satires under a double entente. No celebrated man or woman, known in art or letters, or connected with the Government—from ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... no harm in the book. It is true that the Author is any thing but mincing in his expressions and descriptions, but there is nothing in the Sleeping Bard which can give offence to any but the over fastidious. There is a great deal of squeamish nonsense in the world; let us hope however that there ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... if her heart would break, when there was nothing more for her to bear or do, and Mary took charge of her, to see her to bed, Mrs. Grant and the doctors taking Oscar into their keeping. Well, there was no use in mincing matters—the boy's face was much beaten and battered by the fall; it would show the scars for some time to come—perhaps for ever: concussion of the brain, a fractured leg; even Mrs. Grant's heart grew sick, hearing the doctors enumerate the ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... He had never heard Elsie complain of the hill before. Usually they scampered up it, and rolled down the steepest side—not, truly, when there was milk to carry, but at other times. And now Elsie was walking along in a languid, mincing fashion, as if she had no more fun in her than Robbie himself, and had never scampered bare-foot over the moor six days out of every week, no matter what ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of such importance, that without it speech or reading becomes not only inelegant, but often absolutely unintelligible. The opposite faults are mumbling, muttering, mincing, lisping, slurring, mouthing, drawling, hesitating, stammering, misreading, and the like. "A good articulation consists in giving every letter in a syllable its due proportion of sound, according to the most approved custom of pronouncing it; and in making such ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... samples, to the buyers some days beforehand, so that they were able to decide what they wished to purchase and the price they were willing to pay. The sales always took place at 11 o'clock on Tuesdays in the Commercial Sale Room in Mincing Lane, that narrow street off Fenchurch Street, where the air is so highly charged with expert knowledge of the world's produce, that it would illuminate the prosaic surroundings with brilliant flashes if it could become visible. On the morning of the sale samples of the cacaos ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... left an orphan by manliness and taste, and no longer remembered his lost parents. Never can I forget the stare of Baron Pougens, (a Swiss by birth, but a Russian noble) as this specimen of elegance, with mincing step and gait, moved onward, something like a new member tripping it to the table to take his oaths. How he had got so far from Grange's, I really cannot say; but he had the policy of assurance in his favour; and in his own idea, at the least, was what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... longer be stared at like a curio in a shop window. Inquisitive fingers would no longer clutch at the long sleeves of, crinkled silk, or try to probe the secret of the huge butterfly bow on her back. She could step out fearlessly now like English women. She could give up the mincing walk and the timid manner which she felt was somehow inseparable ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... last year, with hems and haws and sidelong steps and nervous caws, the crows came mincing forth to mail gay valentines, you know. The post box was a hollow tree. They did not know, unluckily, that squirrels had gnawed the floor away, and ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... flared, but caught herself, musingly crossed the room, returned half-way, and with frank design resumed the stool warily vacated by the unslippered foot; whose owner was mincing on, just enough fluttered to play ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... James's Street," continued he, as they turned the corner rather short; in doing which, somewhat animated by the description he had just been giving, Tom's foot caught the toe of a gentleman, who was mincing along the pathway with all the care and precision of a dancing-master, which had the effect of bringing him to the ground in an instant as effectually as a blow from one of the fancy. Tom, who had no intention of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... character was simplicity. Unaided he rose to be pre-eminent as a bricklayer, but in private life he never became accustomed to the exclusive society to which by his genius he had won admittance. He never quite lost the mincing speech of the class from which he sprang, nor could he acquire facility in the vigorous mode of expression proper to his new and exalted station. "Not 'arf" and "'Strewf" ever came haltingly to his tongue, and to the last he struggled painfully with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... oats, an' hay, an' beddin' a foot thick in there. An' a good stall to stand in instead of millin' around a corral all night." The rope slackened, and securing a firm grip on the halter, the Texan edged slowly toward the door, the horse following with nervous, mincing steps, and nostrils aquiver. From her place beside the corral, the girl watched in astonishment as man and horse passed from sight. From the black interior of the stable the voice of the Texan sounded its monotonous drone, and presently ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... afterwards. Pulled in pieces by the fingers, called teezing No. 36. This is done now with flesh of turkeys, and thought better than mincing. Vide ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... know then, what it is to be a lady and what not. You know that it is not to go, like the daughters of Zion in Isaiah's time, with mincing gait, and borrowed head-gear, and tasteless finery, the head well-nigh empty, the heart full of little save vanity and vexation of spirit, busy all the week over cheap novels and expensive dresses, and on Sunday over ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... come to the 'ead. On the south side of the 'ead we discover the mouth. The 'orse's mouth was constructed for mincing 'is victuals, also for 'is rider to 'ang on by. As the 'orse does the other forty-five per cent. of 'is dirty work with 'is mouth it is advisable to stand clear of that as well. In fact, what with his mouth at one end and 'is 'ind-legs at t'other, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... wager, When we are both accouter'd like young men. I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two, And wear my dagger with the braver grace And speak, between the change of man and boy With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps Into a manly stride; and speak of frays, Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies— How honorable ladies sought my love, Which I denying, they fell sick and died; I could not do withal: then I'll repent, And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them; And twenty of ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Enough your play Till next sun-shine holiday. Here be, without duck or nod, Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades On the ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... eyes lowered and fixed on Clementine's pretty feet. "You do not know, countess, what charm, what unexpected piquancy of mind she has." Then, feeling his courage fail him, he added hastily, "There is not a woman in society, with her mincing airs, that is worth the honest nature of ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... evidently taken from individuals whom he had observed and who continue to live for us in his pages. His gallery of priests is for all time. Frei Pa[c,]o comes, with his velvet cap and gilt sword, 'mincing like a very sweet courtier'; Frei Narciso starves and studies, tinging his complexion to an artificial yellow in the hope that his hypocritical asceticism may win him a bishopric; the worldly courtier monk fences and sings and woos; ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... married, made the Champs-Elysees the end of his walks as soon as he heard from Contenson that Monsieur de Nucingen's mistress might be seen there. Peyrade could dress so exactly like an Englishman, and spoke French so perfectly with the mincing accent that the English give the language; he knew England itself so well, and was so familiar with all the customs of the country, having been sent to England by the police authorities three times ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the most beautiful animals of the woods. Their grace, poise, agility, and alertness make them a lovely and inspiring sight. To see them feed undisturbed is wonderful; such mincing steps, such dainty nibbling is a lesson in culture. With wide, lustrous eyes, mobile ears ever listening, with moist, sensitive nostrils testing every vagrant odor in the air, they are the embodiment of hypersensitive self-preservation. And yet deer ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... "lady moshuns," he would take little mincing steps, and toss his head from side to side, and pretend to be fanning ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... him to take his hammer away; it was boy's business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his cursed jaw; ain't those mincing knives down in the forecastle there, men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to yourself; say the word; don't be a fool; forget it all; we are ready to turn to; treat us decently, and we're your men; but ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... "Blessed they whose sins Are cover'd." Like the wood-nymphs then, that tripp'd Singly across the sylvan shadows, one Eager to view and one to 'scape the sun, So mov'd she on, against the current, up The verdant rivage. I, her mincing step Observing, with as tardy step pursued. Between us not an hundred paces trod, The bank, on each side bending equally, Gave me to face the orient. Nor our way Far onward brought us, when to me at once She turn'd, and cried: "My brother! look and hearken." And ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... with him to his hut. Down on the floor we sat. Wilfrid put his treasures between his knees before him, I sat opposite, and the barter began. "What for this fellow, huh?" and he held up a piece of carved ivory, a little triangular mincing-knife, a fur mat that his wife had made, or the skin of a baby-seal. The first thing he asked for was scented soap, the ring that I was wearing, and my porcupine-quill hat-band which looked good to him; every exchange was accompanied ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... points," cried Kirkpatrick, "I am ready to die for him at any time, for I believe a trustier Scot treads not the earth; but I repeat, why, by this mincing mercy, seek to turn our ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... teeth bared yellow At the Dakkanese, his stable-fellow. Then Forward-Ho, then a chestnut weed, Skysail, slight, with a turn of speed. The neat Gavotte under black and coral, Then the Mutineer, Lord Leybourne's sorrel, Natuna mincing, Syringa sidling, Stormalong fighting to break his bridling, Thunderbolt dancing with raw nerves quick, Trying a savage at Bitter Dick. The Ranger (winner three years before), Now old, but ready for one try more; Hadrian; Thankful; the stable-cronies, ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... and messenger, and, my senior tells me, has been employed by the firm in this capacity for about thirty years. He is a negro, about sixty years old, rather short and stout, with a mincing, noiseless gait, broad African features, beautiful teeth, and small, round, twinkling eyes, the movements of which are accompanied by little abrupt, sidewise turns of the head, like a bird. His manner is a curious mixture of deference and self-importance, his voice a soft, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... on—the church being situated about a quarter of a mile from the house, and the way to it through the Park being so completely sheltered by evergreens that to have got wet, save in a downright pour of rain, was next to impossible. At last we would get under way—the ladies mincing along with their magnificently covered prayer-books, affecting an air of unwilling decorum; the dandies carrying cloaks, shawls, and umbrellas for their respective goddesses, and following them, so to speak, under protest, as if there was something ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... darker hue than the lord of the wallow, and of much slimmer build,—altogether less formidable in appearance. But he looked very fit and fearless as, after a moment's supercilious survey of his rival's ooze-dripping form, he came mincing forward to the attack. The two, probably, had never seen each other before; but in rutting season all caribou bulls are enemies ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... kind a' financerin aside, Colonel. What's the use of living in a free country, where every man has a right to make a penny when he can, and talk so? Now, 'pears to me t'aint no use a' mincing the matter; we might a' leaked ye in for as many thousands as hundreds. Seein' how ye was a good customer, we saved ye on a small shot. Better put the niggers out: ownin' such a lot, ye won't feel it! Give us three prime chaps; none a' yer old sawbones what ye puts up at auction when ther' ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... finally lift her head and begin to look timidly about her, she found herself in a country unfamiliar, which, for all she knew, might be an hour's or a week's journey from High March, where Prosper was. Prosper! She knew that every mincing step of the donkey took her further from him, but she was powerless to protest or to pray; life scarce whispered in her yet. And what span of miles or hours, after all, could set her wider from him than discovery, the shame, the yelling of ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... Oh the mincing step he had with him! and the delicate hand on a horse, fingering the reins as St. Cicely does ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... also see such a stationary camp at Richborough, near Sandwich; and at Pevensey, in Sussex; and at Silchester, near Reading, but the two latter are not rectangular. One end of this fort was on the top of the Walbrook bank and the other, if you look in your map, on the site of Mincing Lane. This gives a length of about 700 yards by a breadth of 350, which means an enclosure of about 50 acres. This is a large area: it was at once the barrack, the arsenal, and the treasury of the station; it contained the residences of the officers, the ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... that this declaration contained the essence of the information which Lord Etherington had designed to extract by his momentary flirtation with Mrs. Pott; for when, retreating as it were from this sore subject, she asked him, in a pretty mincing tone, to try his skill in pointing out another love-letter, he only answered carelessly, "that in order to do that he must write her one;" and leaving his confidential station by her little throne, he lounged through ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... back—they do pay something in return; a full measure. They pay by the beauty of their presence, and they are surely very beautiful, with their dainty mincing pink feet and the sheen on the proudly arched breast coverts of the cock birds; and they pay by giving you their trust and their friendship. To gobble the gifts of dried peas, which you buy in little cornucopias from convenient venders for distribution among them, they come wheeling in ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... concealment, a lamentable and wretched sheaf of verbiage, worse, it seemed, than the efforts of his boyhood. He was not longer tautological, he avoided tautology with the infernal art of a leader-writer, filling his wind bags and mincing words as if he had been a trained journalist on the staff of the Daily Post. There seemed all the matter of an insufferable tragedy in these thoughts; that his patient and enduring toil was in vain, that practice went for nothing, and that he had wasted the labor of Milton ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... a man hidden somewhere in Edward Bulwer's perfumed clothes and mincing attitudes, else the world had long since forgotten him. Amidst his dandyism, he learned how to speak well in debate and how to use his hands to guard his head; he paid his debts by honest hard work, and would not be dishonorably beholden to his mother or any one else. He posed ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... they were preparing splendid feasts and banquets, and the cooks were busy plucking geese, killing little pigs, flaying kids, basting the roast meat, skimming pots, mincing meat for dumplings, larding capons, and preparing a thousand other delicacies, a beautiful dove came flying to the kitchen window, ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... who, ashamed of their country, betray themselves by mincing out their abjuration, by calling tables teebles, and chairs cheers! To such renegadoes we prefer the honest quixotism of a modern champion[55] for the Scottish accent, who boldly asserted that "the broad ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... a mincing air, for to that damned "parley-voo" she was as anxious to make Lily out a child now, in order to keep a firmer hold of her, as she had been to increase her age in America, so as to ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... she flourished in wiping her wares, for a china crook, and the figure in question might have passed for a miniature of the mistress. In one respect they differed The china shepherdess was a silent personage. Miss Philadelphia was not; on the contrary, she was reckoned to make, after her own mincing fashion, as good a use of her tongue as any woman, gentle or simple, in the whole town ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... our sons cultivate the Henglish hawkcent and the London lope. In the olden days the glory of the young man was his strength; now it is his chrysanthemum and his collar. And it is going from bad to worse in a ratio of geometrical progression; for how can effeminate men—a canesucking, primping, mincing, affected conglomeration of masculine inanity and asininity beget world-compellers. How can women who care much what is on the outside and little what is on the inside of their heads, and whom a box of lily-white, a French novel, a poodle-dog ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... grotesque dance with Bruin Boru, the wonderful dancing bear. Jack Fenn was very funny in his bear-skin costume, and he pawed and scraped as he ambled ludicrously about, and kept time to the music with mincing steps or sprawling strides. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... marriage. He was harsh at times, and though he had, even in their more humble quarters, surrounded her with a certain amount of luxury, there was a laxity in his manners and conversation that jarred upon her. Geoffrey, she remembered, had not been addicted to mincing words, but, at least, he had lived in accordance with a Spartan moral code. Millicent was not a scrupulous woman, and her ideas of ethical justice were rudimentary, but she possessed in place of a conscience a delicate sense of refinement which ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Kendrick, and of the day, not very far in the future, he hoped, when, in going home, he should be driving towards her instead of away from her. He paid no attention to the fact that, as he neared the creek, his horse subsided from a swinging trot to a mincing gait that betrayed indecision; nor did it strike him as anything unusual that the horse should begin to splash water with his feet long before he had reached the banks of the creek; no doubt it was a pool left standing ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... back in her chair, "that is exactly what I mean. There is no use of our mincing matters, and as I hold that it is the duty of every young woman to get herself well married, I think it is your duty to marry Mr. Haverley if you can. You will never meet a man better suited to you, ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... those gifts which proclaim the gifted, though he was true to his race in many of its phases of simplicity. His skill, or rather his supreme striving to appease aesthetic thrills, made Wylo superb in the fight. He developed a meek, affected voice, somewhat mincing ways, and a faraway look in his eyes. These distinctive traits, worn with careless hair, were so original, so intensely entertaining and notoriety-provoking in a camp which had never possessed the copyright ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the spirited little jade, the off-leader in the third stage, the petted belle of the route, the nervous, coquettish, mincing mare of Marshy Hope. A spoiled beauty she was; you could see that as she took the road with dancing step, tossing her pretty head about, and conscious of her shining black coat and her tail done up "in any simple knot,"—like ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... her partner glided and dipped and bowed, Miss Ann tripping and mincing and Major Fitch pointing his toes and crooking his elbows with much elegance and occasionally taking fancy steps to the ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... was attacked by Alan Cope (Nicholas Harpsfield) for his inaccuracy, Foxe replied: "I hear what you will say: I should have taken more leisure and done it better. I grant and confess my fault, such is my vice, I cannot sit all the day (Moister Cope) fining and mincing my letters, and combing my head, and smoothing myself all the day at the glass of Cicero. Yet, notwithstanding, doing what I can, and doing my good will, methinks I should not be reprehended, at least not so much be railed of at M. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the affectation pure and simple, which is the mere affectation of manner, such as is shown in the drawling voice, the mincing gait, the extreme gracefulness of attitude that by consciousness ceases to be grace, and the thousand little minauderies and coquetries of the sex known to us all. And there is the affectation which people of a higher social sphere show when they condescend to those of low estate, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... personal hatred and vengeance which are characteristic of religious wars, and which add so much of the moral sufferings to the physical calamities of life. L'Hospital, when sending the seals to the queen-mother, who demanded them of him, considered it his bounden duty to give her without any mincing, and the king whom she governed, a piece of patriotic advice. "At my departure," he says in his will and testament, "I prayed of the king and queen this thing, that, as they had determined to break ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... people who have these tender places," said aunt Rachel. "I never get hurt at what is said to me. No—never! To be ever picking and mincing, and chopping off your words—to be afraid to say this or that—for fear somebody will be offended! I can't ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... hour in the bungalow, Chellalu would wander off, apparently because she was tired of us, but really because she was full of a new and original idea, and wanted an audience. Once she puzzled the nursery community who had not been visiting the bungalow, by mincing about on pointed toes, with shoulders shrugged like a dancing master in caricature. The babies thought this a very nice game, and for weeks ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... with one another. Yet, while amendment in these matters is to be striven for, there is nothing that the teacher who wishes to establish habits of orthoepy has to be more watchful in guarding against, than bestowing upon his pupils an affected or mincing utterance, all the more ludicrous and objectionable, it may be, in that a certain set of words are pronounced with over-nicety, while almost all others are left in ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... part of the Tower itself which lies to the westward of the White Tower is held by some to be within this ward. The principal streets and places contained in it are Great Tower Street, part of Little Tower Street and Tower Hill, part of Thames Street, Mark Lane, Mincing Lane, Seething Lane, St. Olave Hart Street, Idle Lane, St. Dunstan's Hill, Harp Lane, Water Lane, and Bear Lane, with the courts and alleys that fall ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... at her. "And you're the gal I took from your mammy and promised I'd bring up a decent woman. You've got none o' her blood in you—not a drop. You're the brat of that damned, mincing brother of mine, that was always riding horseback and showing off in town while I was ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... attracted by small processions of men and women, possessed of the Phepo, or demon, passing up the palisaded streets, turning into the different courts, and paying each and every house by turns a visit. The party advanced in slow funereal order, with gently springing, mincing, jogging action, some holding up twigs, others balancing open baskets of grain and tools on their heads, and with their bodies, arms, and heads in unison with the whole hobbling-bobling motion, kept in harmony to a low, mixed, droning, humming chorus. As the sultan's door was approached, he ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke |
