"Wincing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great deal of work I have had to do in attending to the sick has proved beneficial to me, for they make me speak the language perpetually, and if I were inclined to be lazy in learning it, they would prevent me indulging the propensity. And they are excellent patients, too, besides. There is no wincing; everything prescribed is done instanter. Their only failing is that they become tired of a long course. But in any operation, even the women sit unmoved. I have been quite astonished again and again at their calmness. In cutting out a tumor, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... an hour Babbitt sat looking at a calendar and a clock on a whitewashed wall. The chair was hard and mean and creaky. People went through the office and, he thought, stared at him. He felt a belligerent defiance which broke into a wincing fear of this machine which was ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... me to keep my fingers off the weak, and to clench my fist against the strong—to carry no tales out of school—to stand forth like a true man—obey the stern order of a PANDE MANUM, and endure my pawmies without wincing, like one that is determined not to be the better for them. In a word, before I ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... but when a fellow can go and set a man's barn afire, without wincing, he's worse than I am; that's all I've got ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... than, with a horrible contortion, he exclaimed: 'Why, what on earth is this?' The butler approached, took the bottle and applied it to his nostrils, and, to the dismay of his master, pronounced it to be castor-oil. The Duc de Grammont had swallowed this horrid draught without wincing." ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... always cost money, and a great deal of money, until Marian had left the family in deep gloom for her absence, and Tom, with a final wrench of a vast sum from the willing but wincing father, had settled into a remunerative profession. Tom was now keeping himself and repaying the weakened parent. The rest cost more and more every year as their minds and bodies budded and flowered. It was endless, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... noble heart,", the Knight said, with calmness; neither wincing at the blow upon the table, nor at the "unlike other men," flung ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... murmured "Papa—your lead." Then he apologized by a faint as if inward ejaculation "Beg your pardon, Captain." Naturally she addressed Anthony as Roderick and he addressed her as Flora. This was all the acting that was necessary to judge from the wincing twitch of the old man's mouth at every uttered "Flora." On hearing the rare "Rodericks" he had sometimes a scornful grimace as faint and faded and colourless as ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... manuscript-book still, filled with these youthful efforts. I even undertook to put German verse into English verse, not wincing at the greatest—Goethe and Schiller. These studies were pursued in the pleasant days of cloth-room leisure, when my work claimed me only seven or eight ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... she said gently. "But a strong man bears his disappointments without wincing. I think you're ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... is disposed to regard it with favour,—instead of idly, (as is the way with nine-tenths of mankind,) repeating the formula in terms more or less vague and indefinite; and straightway wincing, falling back on generalities, and in a word shirking the point, the instant it is proposed to bring the question to a definite issue;—if a favourer of the present theory I say, instead of so acting, would take up a copy of the New Testament, and proceed, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... piteously, that the captain was obliged to pause, and to order him a powerful dose of alcohol. This somewhat rallied up his spirit and warmed his heart; all the time of the operation, however, he kept his eyes riveted on the wound, with his teeth set, and a whimsical wincing of the countenance, that occasionally gave his nose something of its ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... two prows, wincing under his fire, were edging for the shore. With that reckless resolution, therefore, to which all true heroes give way at times—not excepting Nelson himself—he resolved to ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... Pinti, now known as the Casa Gherardesca. His arms— an azure ladder transverse on a golden field, with the motto Gradatim placed over the entrance—told all comers that the miller's son held his ascent to honours by his own efforts a fact to be proclaimed without wincing. The secretary was a vain and pompous man, but he was also an honest one: he was sincerely convinced of his own merit, and could see no reason for feigning. The topmost round of his azure ladder had been reached ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... prevails all over the south of France, though it is generally supposed to be the cheapest and most plentiful part of the kingdom. Without all doubt, it must be owing to the folly and extravagance of English travellers, who have allowed themselves to be fleeced without wincing, until this extortion is become authorized by custom. It is very disagreeable riding in the avenues of Marseilles, because you are confined in a dusty high road, crouded with carriages and beasts of burden, between two white walls, the reflection from which, while the sun shines, is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... into the darkness. Leonard resumed his place at the wheel with Greer to aid him. But both men could not swing the big dock around. The tiller was growing utterly unmanageable. Nearly every dash of foam brought with it biting bits of seaweed now. The silent Greer endured the whipping without wincing or speaking. Even in the midst of their work, Leonard found time to wonder why this fellow had stolen his ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... suffered very much in America. With his curious, over-sensitive, wincing laugh, he told us how the boys had followed him and jeered at him, calling after him, 'You damn Dago, you damn Dago.' They had stopped him and his friend in the street and taken away their hats, and spat into them. So that at last ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... head in token that she understood, then turned away too crushed to utter a word. Jervis Ferrars went back to the sickroom, wincing at the pain he had been compelled to inflict as if the blow had fallen on himself. There were no tears in Katherine's eyes, only the terrible black misery in her heart. She had filled in all the blanks in what, the Englishman had said, and she understood perfectly well ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... at his watch; it was eight o'clock. He stood up, wincing as his injured foot touched the floor, and hobbled across the room where he wrenched a rough, split shelf from the wall. This, together with some sticks of firewood, he rolled in a blanket, placing it near the stove. He added ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the marquise, without wincing in the slightest degree at the tragic remembrance thus called up; "but bear in mind, if you please, that our respective parents underwent persecution and proscription from diametrically opposite principles; in proof of which I may remark, that while my family remained among the stanchest ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... chance, and when it came to that, that he had to yield, of to humble himself, to meet loss, or to dispense beyond what was pleasing to a man who took reasonable satisfaction in getting and in holding, he could yet do it without wincing visibly. He was fortunate in being in the hands of two good women, his mother and his wife, who knew him well, and loved him well, and who were jealous for his honour before men, and for his singleness ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... your father's memory is deep and silent sorrow, hers is frequent allusions. Doubtless her way jars upon you; but, Ned, you are younger than she, and it is easier for you to change. Why not try and accept her method as being a part of her, and try, instead of wincing every time that she touches the sore, to accustom yourself to it. It may be hard at first, but it will be far easier in ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... being addressed as "sir." I paid, pocketed my threepence change, and in the elation of it offered Miss Plinlimmon my arm. We walked down George Street, past the work-box in the window. I managed to pass without wincing, though desperately afraid that the shopman might pop out—it seemed but natural he should be lying in wait—and hold me to ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... arm, Jewel," he remonstrated, wincing as she returned, flinging her energetic little body against him. "I have the rheumatism ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... love! Go at once with his lordship," he had said, when Sir Patrick had presented Lord Wensleydown. And wincing at the sentence, Theodora had allowed herself ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... VIVIE [wincing] Oh, stop, stop. Let us have no more of that horrible cant. Mr Praed: if there are really only those two gospels in the world, we had better all kill ourselves; for the same taint is ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... small bills. Everybody knows it, and Jones, who likes popularity, grieves at the unfortunate publicity. But Jones is relieved from a burden which would have broken his poor shoulders, and which even Ferdinand Lopez, who is a strong man, often finds it hard to bear without wincing. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... if he got my message." Val stretched his leg cautiously. The cramp was slowly leaving the muscles and he felt as if he could stand the remaining ache without wincing. "I sent Sam Two back to tell Rupert where his family had eloped to. Frankly, Ricky, this wasn't such a smart trick. You know what Charity said about the swamps. Even the little I've seen of ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... "Yes," said Kenny wincing. "She's younger than Brian." Where had he read that youth was cruel? "Yes, I could have ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... blood and desert-seasoned, was a cool in-fighter who could take punishment without wincing overmuch. But at the end of the first fortnight of the new time-card, he cornered his chief in the private office and ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... ever given him the credit, or the discredit, of possessing, for there was certainly no sign of guilt in his tone or his manner, except that he did not look the inquirer square in the face when he answered his questions, though some guilty people can even do this without wincing. ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... She received Amabel's statements steadily yet with a little wincing, as though they had been bullets whistling past her head; they would not pierce, if one did not move; yet an involuntary compression of the lips and flutter of the eyelids revealed a rather rigid self-mastery. Only after the silence had grown long did she slightly stir, move her hand, turn her head ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... his Electorship and OBER-PFALZ, I say, are yours, Duke, henceforth KURFURST Maximilian!" [Kohler, Reichs-Historie, p. 520.] Which was a hard saying in the ears of Brandenburg, Saxony and the other Five, and of the Reich in general; but they had all to comply, after wincing. For the Kaiser proceeded with a high hand. He had put the Ex-King under Ban of the Empire (never asking "the Empire" about it); put his Three principal Adherents, Johann George of Jagerndorf one of them, Prince Christian of Anhalt (once captain at the Siege of Juliers) another, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... the ruffled apron, but she had a dab of flour on the left cheek, and a smutch of crock on her forehead. She had, too, a cut finger on her right hand, and a burned thumb on her left. But she was Billy—and being Billy, she advanced with a bright smile and held out a cordial hand—not even wincing when the cut finger came under Calderwell's ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... most vaulting wit Caps occasion with an intellectual fit. Yet Arthur is a Bowman: his three-heeled timber'll hit The bald and bold blinking gold when all's done Right rooting in the bare butt's wincing navel in the sight of the sun. . . . . . ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... self-same weary thing take place? The same endeavor to make you believe, And with much the same effect, no more: Each method abundantly convincing, As I say, to those convinced before, But scarce to be swallowed without wincing By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me, I have my own church equally: And in this church my faith sprang first! (I said, as I reached the rising ground, And the wind began again, with a burst Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound From the heart ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... keen relish for all creature comforts, and also on my power of doing without them, if need be. My lord's woods are ample, and I indulge myself with a fire in my bedroom for nine months in the year; yet I could travel in Iceland without wincing from ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... well if faintness and weariness had been all that was the matter; but now that the excitement was over, the collapse came; and the men sat down listlessly and sulkily by twos and threes upon the deck, starting and wincing when they heard some poor fellow below cry out under the surgeon's knife; or murmuring to each other that all was lost. Drew tried in vain to rouse them, telling them that all depended on rigging ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... faint frosts of the year: and insensibly Val relaxed his guard: a heavy sigh broke from him, and he moved restlessly, indulging himself in recollection as a man who habitually endures pain without wincing will now and then allow himself the relief ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... that she could not help, came plentifully; for the punishment was sufficiently severe, and it broke her heart that her father should inflict it; but she stood perfectly still, only for the involuntary wincing that was beyond her control, till her hand was released and the ruler was thrown down. Heart and head bowed together then, and Daisy crouched down on the floor where she stood, unable either to stand or to ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... said, wincing with pain, "I have. I set out for Saddleback this morning—I wished to visit the Scales Tarn and get a glimpse of those noonday stars that are said to make ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... sensitiveness] Excitability — N. excitability, impetuosity, vehemence; boisterousness &c adj.; turbulence; impatience, intolerance, nonendurance^; irritability &c (irascibility) 901; itching &c (desire) 865; wincing; disquiet, disquietude; restlessness; fidgets, fidgetiness; agitation &c (irregular motion) 315. trepidation, perturbation, ruffle, hurry, fuss, flurry; fluster, flutter; pother, stew, ferment; whirl; buck fever; hurry-skurry^, thrill &c (feeling) 821; state ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... John, wincing, with a kind of sorry giggle; and I don't know whether he looked or felt the more sheepish. His face showed every signal of humiliation, he tugged nervously at his beard, but his eyes, in spite of him, his very blue blue eyes ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... drink water, and are satisfied; whereas English wine-merchants add brandy to a good many foreign wines, or they would be quite unacceptable from being deficient in combustible. It is for the same reason, also, that Russians can swallow, without wincing, bumpers of brandy which would kill a Provencal outright: and that the Swedish Government has no end of trouble to keep the country people from converting into brandy the corn that ought to go to the miller; whilst the Mohammedan Arabs accept without ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Lovejoy, a peaceable citizen, had been deprived of free speech and struck down by the knife of the assassin; and could it be expected that a Negro would be spared? The times were exciting and dangerous, and yet Anderson was determined to take his place and work on in the path of duty, never wincing, but leaving ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... upon his red-hot dripping skin, and Hodges gave him a brutal push. "Go to your cell." Robinson crawled off, often wincing and trying in vain to keep his clothes from rubbing those parts of his person where they had scrubbed the skin ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... straggling. Foremost strode Alcibiade Tourniquet, jeweller and native of Argenteuil, the best fellow in the world: but one who would persist in marching in a pair of Parisian boots with high, tapering heels, bearing the pain they gave with little wincing. For him the ground we trod was classical, for we were in the neighbourhood of Austerlitz. Immediately in his rear swaggered the Austrian, with swarthy features and black straggling locks, swaddled and dirty; he was called "bandit" by general consent. The other three men of our party ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the burgundy and scarlet mountains hurt her into wincing—for was it not the clarion of Beauty that Samson had heard—and in answer to which he had left her? So, she would sit, and let her eyes wander, and try to imagine the sort of picture those same very hungry eyes ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... not old and grotesque," Hilda said, contemplatively; "you're young and beautiful." The freedom seemed bred, imperceptibly and enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever so little under it, but took it without wincing. She had less than the common palate for flattery of the obvious kind, but this was something quite different—a mere casual and unprejudiced statement ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to hurry,' said Claire, clenching her fists as two simultaneous bursts of song, in different keys and varying tempos, proceeded from the dining-room and kitchen. A girl has to be in a sunnier mood than she was to bear up without wincing under the infliction of a duet consisting of the Rock of Ages and Waiting for the Robert E. Lee. Assuredly Claire proposed to hurry. She meant to get her packing done in record time and escape from this place. She went into her bedroom and ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... tempting mark. He soon saw what we were up to, fled to the stable, and climbed to the top of the hay manger. He was still within range, however, and we kept the stones flying faster and faster, but he just blinked and played possum without wincing either at our best shots or at the noise we made. I happened to strike him pretty hard with a good-sized pebble, but he still blinked and sat still as if without feeling. "He must be mortally wounded," I said, "and now we must kill him to put him out of ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... reach for Price. It sounds easy; but poke around with our poles as wildly or as scientifically as we might, the raft would not budge. The noonday sun was blazing right overhead and the muddy water running all over slippered feet and dainty dresses. How long we staid praying for rescue, yet wincing already at the laugh that would come with it, I shall never know. It seemed like a day before the welcome boat and the "Ha, ha!" of H. and Max were heard. The confinement tells severely on all the animal life about us. Half the chickens are dead and ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... splintering hull, the parting shrouds, the shivered gear, and hear the shrieks and groans of his wounded; and he unable to reply in kind! The sweat of agony poured down his face. Oh, if he could but reach the open sea, and square his yards, and make a long chase of it; perhaps fall in with aid. Wincing under each heavy blow, he crept doggedly, patiently on ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... a girl's frolic," said her father, wincing suddenly. "They can't help having birthdays. Betty will be begging ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... and be led away to twiddle his fingers and talk with phantoms. He saw himself as he had seen other witless, slavering spectacles that had once been human, and a nausea of fear crushed big sweat out of his wincing skin. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... cutting away both the past and the future—burnt deep into his mind, as he followed in the track of the sallow and depreciatory Miklos or watched the podgy figure of Herr Schwarz, running from side to side as picture after picture caught his eye. The wincing salesman saw himself as another Charles Surface; but now that the predicament was his own it was no longer amusing. These fair faces, these mothers and babies of his own blood, these stalwart men, fighters ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that I was only made for the use of the small vulgar. Aesop had given me a fair warning of this in one of his fables. Well, I must e'en scamper or take what follows. With this he fell a-trotting, and wincing, and yerking, and calcitrating, alias kicking, and farting, and funking, and curvetting, and bounding, and springing, and galloping full drive, as if the devil had come for him in ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed for twins. This resemblance always reminded ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... asked her if she was sick, when she knew there was nothing the matter with her. Even Gladys had stopped scratching with her slate-pencil, looking at her in a way that said as plainly as words could, "What a nervous thing you are, not to bear the scratching of a pencil without wincing;" and as for Susan, tormenting as she had been on other days, she had been angelic in comparison with this. After all, she had too much good common-sense and true religious feeling to sit upon her stool long without beneficial results. ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... westward, wincing every now and then at her close driving, and told him all, and showed him what she was pleased to call her little game. He told her it was too romantic. Said he, "You ladies read nothing but novels; but the real world is quite different from the world of novels." Having delivered ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... he demanded in fierce disgust. "I have told you that I believe in the conventions—and I violate every one of them. I'm a spectacle for gods and men!" His face was stern with self-disgust: he forced himself to meet her gaze, wincing under it; ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... he, laughing, yet wincing. "Heloise is indeed all you say, the sweetest girl in New France! But she was too angelic for Le Gardeur de Repentigny. Pshaw! you make me say foolish things, Amelie. But in penance for my slight, I will be doubly attentive to my fair cousin de Lotbiniere to-day. I will ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... thing she knows too much to leave her behind. For a second I mean to pay her back, and for a third, although you may think it strange, I'm mad for her. I tell you she looked wondrous standing with her back against that wall, her marble face never wincing when I told her all the lie about young de Cressi's death—which will be holy truth when I get a chance at him—watching me out of those ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... like a hot musket's powder-pan. At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face. Would'st thou brand me, Perth? wincing for a moment with the pain; have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then? Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this harpoon for the White Whale? For the white fiend! But now for ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... warm friendship existed between these two men; but there was never any evidence of hostility in the President's attitude toward Mr. Kitchin. He listened politely and with patience to every argument that Mr. Kitchin vigorously put forward to sustain his contention in the matter, and took without wincing the sledgehammer blows often dealt by Mr. Kitchin. The President replied to Mr. Kitchin's arguments in an open, frank manner and invited him to the fullest possible discussion ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... at each other intently, neither wincing nor lowering his gaze. The Wanderer saw that he had touched upon Keyork's greatest and most important secret, and Keyork fancied that his companion knew more than he actually did. But nothing further was said, for Keyork was ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... by these harrowing events, had not a word to answer, and replied only by shrugging and twisting his shoulders with pain. The departure of Tom made it necessary for him to assist the negro in rowing back the boat, which he did with a handkerchief tied about his head, which Primus lent him and wincing with the soreness of his bones, the negro interspersed his moans with expressions of sorrow over their ill luck and of wonder whether it was Holden or the ghost of the fisherman that assaulted the constable vowing he would "hab satisfacshum for ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her slinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... to pick holes in the grammar of this letter, but what are we to say of its profound goodness and tenderness? It is written as though he had the mother's face before his eyes, and saw her wincing in the flesh at every word. And what, again, are we to say of its sober truthfulness, not exaggerating, not running to phrases, not seeking to make a hero out of what was only an ordinary but good and brave ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... didn't," said Bingley, wincing with the pain, as Joel slowly drew him to his feet; "it wasn't your stinger of a blow, Pepper, but some of those dastardly cads stepped all over me; I could feel them hoofing me. There, set me in that chair, and I'll draw a long breath if ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... into the night. The gunners stood by their horses. Even the sentries, posted outside the rampart to guard against alarm, stood to attention, and Colonel Carter, wincing from the pain in his right arm, walked out in front of where the men were ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... and the stirrup leathers,' growled the groom, as his master rode away; 'you're always wantin' sumfin to find fault with. I'm blowed if it arn't a disgrace to an oss to carry such a man,' added he, eyeing the chestnut fidgeting and wincing as the captain ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... on, listening, with her wise, wistful smile, to the chatter of other women, wincing at a thousand little pricks that even her husband could not see, winning him from his ugly moods with that mixture of the child and the woman that his ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... shifts seat, shirks touch, As, with a twitchy brow and wincing lip, And cheek that changes to all kinds of white, He proffers his defence, in tones subdued Near to mock-mildness now, so mournful seems The obtuser sense truth fails to satisfy; Now, moved, from pathos at the wrong endured, To passion.... Also his tongue at times is hard to curb; ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... quite forgave my word silvern. Yet, he professed not to have prejudices in such matters, but to use any word that would serve his turn, without wincing; and he certainly did use and defend words, as undisprivacied and disnatured, that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... holy duty of self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other provision made for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting to make sure, and with what impatience was apparent in the working of paste-coloured features, the wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the incessant shutting and ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little wincing grimace. "For dreadful—dreadfulness!" ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... world entirely to Lady Laura, and that he was ungrateful to feel himself ever dull in her society. And, moreover, there was something to be done in the world beyond making love and being merry. Mr. Kennedy could occupy himself with a blue book for hours together without wincing. So Phineas went to work again with his Alison, and read away till ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... had any knowledge of the wincing courage this offer cost, she did not show it. "You're very kind to think of it," she said, "but I believe it will be better if Jacqueline and I make our ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... a momentary obedience, save that the man upon whose shoulders the gigantic hands lay—not as yet heavily—attempted to squirm away. Iron-like fingers bit into his flesh and, wincing with a smothered yell of pain, he stood trembling. Halloway passed one hand over his hostage's shoulder and drew the pistol from its holster—then he sent the fellow spinning from him like a top, and covered the others, who huddled close together. "Yore guns—grip-fust—an' speedily," ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... martyr, the allotted number of blows. Then came the turn of the whipper, who, with equal constancy, offered his back to the scourge of the enraged sufferer. Thus they alternated until one gave in, or until the bystanders decreed victory to him who bore the punishment longest without wincing. The flayed backs of these "chivalrous men of honor" were ever after displayed in token of bravery; and, doubtless, their Dulcineas devoted to their healing the subtlest ointment and tenderest affection ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... rolled on, and Derrick worked away steadily, giving his books to the world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of an author's life, laughing at the outrageous reports that were in circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he received, and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be made, that there are in the world a vast ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... his uncle, wincing a good deal; "but, as the matter was likely to turn up, he was only working ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... there to be astonished at in such an intention?" said the Marchese, evidently wincing under ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... he had rallied Roy on overdoing the tame-cat touch and neglecting the important novel. And Roy—wincing at the truth of that friendly flick—had replied no less truthfully: "Well, if it hangs fire, old chap, you're the sinner. You dug me out of Paradise by twitting me with becoming an appendage to a pencil! Another month ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... joined the stricken group. They huddled together until another shock threw them one upon another. Delicate women became nauseated as if in mid-ocean. Sturdy men who had faced bullets in the Civil War without wincing, lost self-control. They surged; they fought; they comforted each other; they ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... they were talking, Moses looked up and saw Mara's head, as a stray sunbeam falling upon the golden hair seemed to make a halo around her face. Her large eyes were fixed upon him with an expression so intense and penetrative, that he felt a sort of wincing uneasiness. "What makes you look at me so, Mara?" ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... returned, wincing under her cruel thrust, but persistent, "but we are not discussing ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... added, wincing with pain, "let's cut out all this sort of thing. I believe I got ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... Wincing at the thought, I bade Maignan be silent; and, drumming on the door myself, I called for the landlord. Someone who had been giving directions in a tone of great, consequence ceased speaking, and came close to the door. After ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... whether a courageous Roman captive who was shorn of his eyelids, and set under the blistering sun of Africa, suffered any more keenly; but motionless, apparently impassive as a stone mask, on whose features pitiless storms beat in vain, she bore without wincing the agony of her humiliation. Very white and still, she sat hour by hour with downcast eyes, and folded hands; and those who watched most closely could detect only one change of position; now and then she raised her clasped hands, and rested her lips a moment on the locked fingers, then dropped ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... I did not believe you. Now I know it. He has the sort of pluck which enables a man to break a girl's heart,—or to destroy a girl's hopes,—without wincing. He can tell a girl to her face that she can go to the—mischief for him. There are so many men who can't do that, from cowardice, though their hearts be ever so well inclined. 'I have changed my mind.' There is something ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... his mouth and shut it again, and, with a sudden wincing of his features, abruptly turned and bent down to open the lantern in front of her machine. She looked down at him, almost kneeling in front of her, with an unreasonable approbation in her eyes. It was, as I have indicated, the hour and ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... makes me regret my—moderation," he said, wincing under the lash of her words. "But I'm not considering you! I'm considering the peace of mind of that other woman—not yours!" He took her in his arms, none too gently. "Not yours. I'd show no mercy to you There is only one kind of mercy you'd understand. Look ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... on a bank of mould and that a little rivulet of hot water was running over one foot. She tried to raise herself and found her leg was very painful. She was not clear whether it was night or day nor where she was; she made a second effort, wincing and groaning, and turned over and got into a sitting position and looked ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... occasion to Turgot, who was urging him to refuse an utterly unwarrantable application for a pension. "What are a thousand crowns a year?" "Sire," replied the minister, "they are the taxation of a village." The king acquiesced for the moment, but probably not without some secret wincing at the control to which he seemed to be subjected; and we may, perhaps, suppose that even the queen's disapproval of the minister would have been less effectual had it not been re-enforced by ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... rang automatically from the wincing, panic-stricken child, that felt cut off and lost ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... arm and showed where Commodus had gripped him; the lithe muscle looked as if it had been gripped in an iron vise. He chafed it, wincing with pain. ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... been charming; there could be no doubt about that, whatever else you might come to think about him. Able, too, but living on his nerves, wincing like a high-strung horse from the annoyances and disappointments of life, such as Quaker oats because the grape-nuts had come to an end, and the industrial news of the morning, which was as bad as usual and four times repeated in four ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... defense," resumed Blue Cap; "for one who cannot stretch out his neck without wincing, it is always a pity. When one has teeth to bite, then it is different. You have tusks? Well, show them, and look for ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... all knew and dreaded what was coming. I looked round at their strange faces. When I saw their wincing attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes, I wondered that I had ever ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... new and incomprehensible fourth hypothesis, big with the terrors of the mystic infinite, rose up before his disturbed mind, like a grim and hollow ghost. After a few seconds, however, he looked at it straight in the face without wincing. His companions showed themselves just as firm. Whether it was science that emboldened Barbican, his phlegmatic stoicism that propped up the Captain, or his enthusiastic vivacity that cheered the irrepressible ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... a look that was meant to scorch—and it did. But I showed at the surface no sign of how I was wincing and shrinking. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his body—he was wincing from the lash and uttering a scream of pain—it was raised again, and again about to fall—when Nicholas Nickleby, suddenly starting up, cried "Stop!" in a voice that ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... on this madman"; Harriet pleaded wincing when she saw Lionel bound and helpless. Lionel then reproached her. She knew perfectly that she deserved it and felt her love for him growing greater. Everybody was in a most dreadful state of mind. Then a page rushed in and cried that Queen Anne was coming toward them, and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... or less at a venture—"when he becomes aware that, though by law enabled to buy his son off from military service, he has by chicanery been rendered powerless. We will imagine him an enforced spectator, wincing as each stroke ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "The army," he said, wincing imperceptibly. "Oh! that was the Paymaster's old notion. Once I almost fell in with it, and as odd a thing as you could imagine put an end to the scheme. Do you know what it was?" He glanced at ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... die, but he did not like to protest against this painful prolonging of his life. He was pretty well sick of life, but he had to submit to the kind treatment meted out to him, to twist his mouth into a wry smile when the Directrice asked him each day if he was not better, and to accept without wincing all the newest devices that the surgeon discovered for him. There was some sense in saving other people's lives, but there was no sense in saving his. But the surgeon, who was working for a reputation, ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... released that grip there was a change in Diablo, as though he realized that the man had suddenly trusted himself entirely to his mount. Bull felt a sudden wincing of all that great body; the quarters sank and trembled. He thought at first that it was because the horse was failing under the weight of this ponderous burden; but instinct told him a moment later that it was fear, and a mixture ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... throat-threats. With eyes straight-looking and unblinking, he sprang and sprang again. Neither did he growl when he attacked nor yelp when he was kicked. Fear of the blow was not in him. As Tom Haggin had so often bragged of Biddy and Terrence, they bred true in Jerry and Michael in the matter of not wincing at a blow. Always—they were so made—they sprang to meet the blow and to encounter the creature who delivered the blow. With a silence that was invested with the seriousness of death, they were wont to attack ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... blow, but the Marquis was a fighting man and he took it without wincing. Packard, discussing the situation with him one day, pointed out to him that the cattle could not possibly be stall-fed before they were slaughtered as no cattle feed was raised short of the corn country, hundreds ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Grimshaw rose and bade me follow him. A door opened, and I stood in the blaze of forty-two pairs of upturned eyes. I was a cool hand for my age, but I lacked the boldness to face this battery without wincing. In a sort of dazed way I stumbled after Mr. Grimshaw down a narrow aisle between two rows of desks, and shyly took the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... smiled grimly, immediately wincing as the movement of the facial muscles gave him a thrill of pain. It was evident, he reasoned, that the Birwas had mistaken him for an ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... weeks, Ursula's heart burned from this rebuff. She felt so cruelly vulnerable. Did he not know how vulnerable she was, how exposed and wincing? He, of all people, knew. And he wanted to do this to her. He wanted to hurt her right through her closest sensitiveness, he wanted to treat her with shame, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... said Hugh coldly, tightening the iron grip as though Pete's wincing gave him satisfaction. "Come up here by the pines. I want ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... settling, the , that document being the common property of , and more especially as three-fourths at least of the cash realized is understood to belong to the men. , however, <is not the practice>; and hence the fishermen, naturally jealous, and still wincing under the scars of former years, are never satisfied; and I consider the curer in acting thus is reprehensible, and the fishermen justified in complaining, even when the curer is a sufferer. Were it made penal on the part of the curer to treat the bargain so, there would be less injustice ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... grimed with perspiration and the dried stains from a cut, he refilled the shell cup, drank the contents, replaced the little vessel balanced upside-down upon the edge of the rough earthen jar, and then swung himself round into a sitting position, wincing and half-groaning with pain as he did so, leant his aching head against the thickly plaited palm wall, and reached out for the basket, from which he picked one of ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... to the man who is wincing under the pang of poverty to find that the world regards him as rich and well off, and totally beyond the accidents of fortune. It is not simply that he feels how his every action will be misinterpreted and mistaken, and a spirit of thrift, if not actual shabbiness, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Clarence, wincing. Then suddenly he seemed more in earnest than Joy had ever known him. "Can't you ever talk or think of anything but the admirable John? How on earth did he get you ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... then, Doctor," said Eric, gingerly moving himself a fraction of an inch, but wincing as he did so; "if I ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... might feel, prison regulations were accepted by him as matters of course, not worth being treated as separate grievances. He never showed any shrinking from the assumption of the convict dress, whilst Henry was fretting and wincing over the very notion of his wearing it, and trying to arrange that the farewell interview should ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vowed the Germans were right, and, not without a secret zest, drew a lurid picture of the horrors of crewless cruising, and the drudgery that my remorseless skipper inflicted on me. It was delightful to see Davies wincing when I described my first night at Flensburg, for I had my revenge at last, and did not spare him. He bore up gallantly under my jesting, but I knew very well by his manner that he had not forgiven me my ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers |
