"Squeamish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he had good precedent; and he cites Herodotus, Seneca, Suetonius, Plutarch, Erasmus, Thomas More, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Lactantlas, Eusebius, and the Bible itself, as examples occasionally of the very reverse of a squeamish euphemism. Of even greater interest is a passage in which he foresees the charges of cruelty, ruthlessness, and breach of literary etiquette, likely to be brought against him on account of his treatment of Morus, and expounds ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... would fail, and "you squeamish fool!" I said at intervals, until my tongue failed to articulate; it had swollen so in my mouth. Flying fish skimmed the water like thick spray; petrels were so few that I could count them; another shark swam round me for an hour. In sudden panic I dashed my knuckles on the wooden bars, to ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... true," he says, "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 is not so much as there was. Indeed can we doubt that such folly is on the decline, when we find Albemarle Street in '60, willing to publish a harmless but plain speaking book which Smithfield shrank ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... that had ever dragooned the Huguenots to mass. It was asserted by English Whigs that he was known in France by the nickname of the Hangman; that, at Rome, the very cardinals had shown their abhorrence of his cruelty; and that even Queen Christina, who had little right to be squeamish about bloodshed, had turned away from him with loathing. He had recently held a command in Savoy. The Irish regiments in the French service had formed part of his army, and had behaved extremely well. It was therefore supposed that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... we were to start off next morning by the 7.10 train, and half an hour before that time saw me standing before the Columbus statue in the Piazza Acquaverdi. Weems was such a mighty squeamish little creature about the proprieties that I thought an old dunnage-sack would scandalize him, and so had purchased a drab portmanteau for my kit at the cost of half my remaining capital. I intended to have no more breezes with him if it could ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... with the skins on, and some undressed to be taken home, for the Glasses and the Kitcheners of Katunga to try their culinary skill upon. Little balls of beef and mutton were also to be had, weighing about two ounces, but the stomach must not have been of the squeamish ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... means squeamish, on the testimony of his nose and ears P. Sybarite then and there concluded that he would have to have become exceedingly blase indeed ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... father, a little stiffly. "At any rate, thank God you are not drunk or anything like it. But this is hardly the sort of thing to discuss in the street. We'll go into the Den and have a chat and a smoke before we go to bed. You know I'm not squeamish about these things. I know that a lad of twenty is made of flesh and blood just as a man of thirty or forty is, and although I consider what is called sowing wild oats foolish as well as a most ungentlemanly pastime, still, ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... conversing," writes Crockett, "Colonel Bowie had occasion to draw his famous knife, and I wish I may be shot if the bare sight of it wasn't enough to give a man of a squeamish stomach the colic. He saw I was admiring it, and said he, 'Colonel, you might tickle a fellow's ribs a long time with this little instrument before you'd make make ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... pleased with your just and sensible preface against the squeamish or bigoted persons who would bury in oblivion the faults and follies of princes, and who thence contribute to their guilt; for if princes, who living are above control, should think that no censure is to attend them ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... large sum, a sum which when put to it, and with time before him, he could so easily supply; and as for any other consideration, it was really, when you came to think of it, a quite justifiable expedient, not to be condemned except by squeamish persons, and which being never known, could do no harm in the world. He had not harmed anybody by what he had done. Tozer, who was quite able to pay it over and over again, would never know of it; and in what respect, he asked himself, was it worse to have done this than to have a bill really ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the first man I killed," the constable threatened. "I'm an old soldier, an' I ain't squeamish ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... ruffians—I can call them, nothing else—paced the deck, smoking, and passed me every forty seconds. If there is a thing which tumbles a human being of a highly-strung nervous temperament over when he feels squeamish, it is the occasional whiff of a cigar. Then, added to the occasional whiff, were occasional catches of derogatory remarks, which came home to me as unpleasantly as did the tobacco: "A chap with a sword like that should live up to it, and not grovel over a ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... of the men, however, were courteous enough to attend to their unwilling guests and see they were served as well as conditions would permit The food was plentiful and of good quality, but although none of Uncle John's party was squeamish or a stickler for form, all more or less revolted from the utter disregard of all ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... three full Moons beguil'd, But that his forward Spouse has prov'd with Child, And now begins the drugery of Life, Lo! the vast Comforts of a Breeding Wife, Now she's grown Squeamish, such ado is kept, She e'en as peevish as an Ape new whipt, She pukes and whines, do's nothing but complain, And vows she'll never know the like again; But 'tis as Children promise to be good, Only remember'd while they feel the Rod. And now the look'd for time approaches nigh, And you've a ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... think of ourselves also, our own preferences, moods and attitudes, as more or less beautiful or ugly; the inner life falling under the same criticism as the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about our desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards luxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the mean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... evil omen, and commenced to wait for Chrysis to lead me on my way. I took a short stroll and had just seated myself where I had sat the day before, when she came under the trees, leading a little old woman by the hand. "Well, Mr. Squeamish," she chirped, when she had greeted me, "have you recovered your appetite?" In the ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... of 'kind'. Yet other circumstances may contribute, which would avail to render him worthy of praise for having employed this artifice in order to know those people, and to make trial of them; just as Gideon made use of some extraordinary means of choosing the most valiant and the least squeamish among his soldiers. And even if the prince were to know already the disposition of all these messengers, may he not put them to this test in order to make them known also to the others? Even though these reasons be not applicable to God, they make it clear, nevertheless, that an action like that ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... dismal time anyway, and teeth will chatter, no matter how brave you feel! It is a squeamish, sickly, choky time,—a winter morning before the sun is up; and you simply cannot eat breakfast when you look round the table and see every chair filled,—even the five-year-old fellow is on hand,—and know that a long, weary time is ahead of the one who sits next ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... out to the West with the intention of working hard and using his hands as well as his brains; he had not been squeamish; he had, in fact, laboured like a ploughman; and to be obliged to give in had been galling and bitter. There are human beings into whose consciousness of themselves the possibility of being beaten does not enter. This ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Balthazar be squeamish? Gold, the interest of the abbaye, and the foolish eclat of this silly scene, have enabled my father to dispose of his child to yonder mercenary, who has bargained like a Jew in the affair, and who, among other conditions, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... as the wolf's mouth, and the rapidly rising wind cut the tops off the short seas and sent them flying over the bridge in constant showers of spray. Moreover, the perpetual pitching and rolling soon gave our friend a squeamish and altogether nasty sensation in the region of his waistcoat, and in ten minutes, by which time the water had found its way through his oilskins and was trickling merrily down the back of his neck, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... gesture expressive of indifference on that point. "People who form the drug habit are seldom over-squeamish in other respects," he said. "He has certainly hastened matters, but he is not responsible for the evil itself. That has been germinating during the whole ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... wolfish teeth between her blood-red lips, when she noticed the horrified expression which had appeared on Mathieu's face since Gaude had been spoken of. "Ah!" said she; "there's a man, now, who in nowise resembles your squeamish Dr. Boutan, who is always prattling about the birth-rate. I can't understand why Constance keeps to that old-fashioned booby, holding the views she does. She is quite right, you know, in her opinions. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... "Pooh! you are squeamish. However, as you are a novice, let us put off the rest until you are seasoned. The pictures are not all horrible. Each book refers to a different country. That one contains illustrations of modern civilization in Germany, for instance. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... are more squeamish than wise. Sir, how many grown up kings have we had, who have shown no more respect for the laws of the country, than if they had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... this scandal about poor Meynell is probably providential. It must and will weaken the Modernist party enormously. To thank God for such a thing sounds horrible, but after all, have we any right to be more squeamish than Holy Writ? 'Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered.' The warnings and menaces of what are called the Imprecatory Psalms show us plainly that His enemies ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... abundant repast," when the author meant merely to say, "After saying good night he went to bed," and "He breakfasted." This error is due to the mistaken idea that things which are common are necessarily vulgar, and to an absurd squeamish objection to "call a spade, a spade." It is the worst possible way to handle commonplaces, for it attracts particular attention to the very things which ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... India-shawl, whose eye had been studying the detail of the brigantine's equipment, rather than attending to the object which so much attracted the looks of his companions. "The night air has taut'ned the cordage of that flying-jib-boom, fellows, until it begins to lift its nose like a squeamish cockney, when he holds it over salt-water! See to it, and bring the spar in line; else shall we have a reproof from the sorceress, who little likes to have any of her limbs deranged. Here, gentlemen, the opinions ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... she indulged any enthusiasm, in view of the approaching change, it was in the prospect of endless shirt-making, and in calculations about how cheaply (not how happily) she could enable her husband to live. She had no squeamish delicacy about allowing the world to know the scope and meaning of her arrangements, and all her friends participated in her visions of comfort and economy. False modesty was no part of her nature—and her sentiment could be reduced to an algebraic formula—excluding ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... Daly's famous New York company, and afterward a "star" under his direction. She was a woman who could not be taught, it is said, though she had a crude natural force which carried with people whose feelings were accessible and whose taste was not squeamish. She was already old, with a ravaged countenance and a physique curiously hard and stiff. She moved with difficulty—I think she was lame—I seem to remember some story about a malady of the spine. Her Armand was disproportionately young and slight, a handsome youth, perplexed ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... without the slightest apparent effect. Probably two million squeamish mosquitoes were driven away by the disgust of our medicaments, but what good did that do us when eight million others were not so particular? At the last we hung bandanas under our hats, cut fans of leaves, and stumbled ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... sense of the word you're not that at all, sir. You're a great builder. You've done more for the Northwest than any man living. You couldn't have done it if you had been squeamish. I hold the end justifies the means. What you've got is yours because you've won it. Men who do a great work for the public ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... in any country but Spain. Above a wood-fire, which burned black and smouldering in the strong daylight, a large iron kettle was suspended, emitting an odour that would infallibly have turned the stomachs of more squeamish or less hungry persons than those for whom its contents were destined. It would have required an expert chemist to analyse the ingredients of this caldron, of which the attendant Hecate was a barefooted, grimy-visaged drummer-boy, who, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... personal" of Daniel Coolby of Harvard, Md. Their lot had been that of ordinary slaves in the country, on farms, &c. The motive which prompted them to escape was the fact that their master had "threatened to sell" them. He had a right to do so; but Hetty was a little squeamish on this point and took great umbrage at her "kind master." In this "disobedient" state of mind, she determined, if hard struggling would enable her, to defeat the threats of Mr. Daniel Coolby, that he should not much longer have ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... true to her word, and not squeamish. Riatt found it rather amusing to wander at her side, dressing her in imagination in every garment that the windows so frankly displayed, and answering with real interest her constant inquiry: "Do you think that would become me? Would you like me in that? Do ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... could not bear a prolongation of this agony of suspense. Even Nottingham, who, in the Painted Chamber, had taken the lead against the Commons, declared that, though his own conscience would not suffer him to give way, he was glad that the consciences of other men were less squeamish. Several Lords who had not yet voted in the Convention had been induced to attend; Lord Lexington, who had just hurried over from the Continent; the Earl of Lincoln, who was half mad; the Earl of Carlisle, who limped in on crutches; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ruffian there, there was a heart as brave as Ajax's own; but then they fought with sticks instead of lances, and hammered away on fustian jackets instead of brazen shields; and, therefore, poor fellows, they were beneath 'the dignity of poetry,' whatever that may mean. If one of your squeamish 'dignity-of- poetry' critics had just had his head among the gun-stocks for five minutes that night, he would have found it grim tragic earnest enough; not without a touch of fun though, here ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... needn't make a habit of it. One sweater doesn't make a summer! I hope Mrs. Berry won't be so squeamish! If I thought she would, I'd throw hers in the ash barrel before I'd give ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... ladyship does not know the world," said her husband; "and you have always been as squeamish as when you were a ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rein of vigilant discipline. I intimated as much to Dorrance when he asked my consent to your engagement. But this is his lookout, not mine. What I began to say was that, in MY opinion, he would have acted more sensibly had he not encouraged your squeamish repugnance to talking of your early fault and its ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... something very badly," he explained with the utmost simplicity, "the only way to get it is to forge straight ahead. You can't afford to be squeamish over trifles. And I want you!"—his voice deepening to ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... differ very widely from each other as individuals; but they all have this in common, that their virtues sit easy and natural upon them, as native outgrowths, not as things put on: there is no ambition, no pretension, nothing at all boastful or fictitious or pharisaical or squeamish or egoish in their virtues; we never see the men hanging over them, or nursing and cosseting them, as if they were specially thoughtful and tender of them, and fearful lest they might catch cold. Then too, with all these ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... face glowed like a firebrand, and his eyes sparkled with wrath, as he loudly exclaimed, "What difference does it make to you, you ungrateful cur, whether the account is true or false, so long as you get your money? Bring none of your squeamish objections here. Either take the account as I have made it out, and swear to it, without flinching, or"—and here he swore an oath too revolting to transcribe "not a cent ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... way. Negro servants are not up to what they used to be. They are getting squeamish, and you have to be so careful how you speak to them or they will leave you. We are kept always on the lookout for a ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... Amos sent a squeamish glance out of the corner of one eye at the moving ground beneath them, and then, realizing that they were on their way back to the Mirabelle, swallowed and began ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... "I felt a little squeamish for a day or two after leaving Melbourne," I replied, "but I soon got over it, and it was not very bad even while it lasted. I am a tolerably ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... him as to whether I ought to make myself known to my host and hostess as a benighted traveller, instead of the guest whom they had taken me for, he exclaimed, 'By no means! I hate such squeamish morality.' And he seemed much offended by my innocent question, as if it seemed by implication to condemn something in himself. He was offended and silent; and just at this moment I caught the sweet, attractive eyes of the lady opposite—that ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Belward, I've seen It all, of course; I know It backwards, and I'm not squeamish, but that sounds—flippant-that, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... much the beau, was very little of the gentleman. To a hump-backed lady who declared that she had "come straight from London," Nash replied, "Then you must have picked up a d—d crook by. the way." But polite society was not squeamish, and took him at his own valuation. His assemblies became the rage, his social despotism was eagerly acquiesced in, and the improvements he demanded were ungrudgingly supplied. The social labours of Nash were admirably seconded by the work ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... unimaginative mind there was sufficient justification in that attitude. As for the ease with which he planned to kill and cover his killing under the semblance of accident, he would have said, if you could make him speak of it, that he was not squeamish. They'd all have to die ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... on a fool's errand or really to get money; and when I admitted that I had cherished hopes of obtaining a clear two thousand dollars from him, he coolly replied that he knew of but one way in which I could hope to get such an amount, and that if I was too squeamish to adopt it, I had made a mistake in coming to his shop, which was ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... and against their own judgment of what was sensible and sound in fighting-risks I do not know. General Trenchard, their supreme chief, believed in an aggressive policy at all costs, and was a Napoleon in this war of the skies, intolerant of timidity, not squeamish of heavy losses if the balance were tipped against the enemy. Some young flying-men complained to me bitterly that they were expected to fly or die over the German lines, whatever the weather or ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... argument failed, and brute force when they dared. It was like beating mad hounds from off their worry. What established order at last was that King rolled up his sleeves and began, so that eagerness gave place to wonder. The "Hills" are not squeamish in any one particular; so that the fact that the cave became a shambles upset nobody. The surgeon's thrill that makes even half-amateurs oblivious of all but the work in hand, coupled with the desperate need of winning this first trick, made King horror-proof; and nobody waiting for ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Londoners' side, but the knight of the Badger snapped his fingers, and said, "So much for your burgher trainbands! All they be good for with their show of fight is to give honest landsknechts a good reason to fall on to the plunder, if so be one is hampered by a squeamish prince. But grammercy to St. George, there be not many of that sort after they he ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not profit by her fancy, when the greatest nobles buy a night with such women with their richest treasures? When ambassadors set foot in these depths, they fling aside all thought of yesterday or to-morrow. I should be a fool to be more squeamish than princes, especially as I love no ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... frankly on the bill of fare to-day as a ration for troops and civilians alike, but many of the latter refused to take it. Hunger will probably make them less squeamish, but one cannot help sympathising with the weakly, who are already suffering from want of proper nourishment, and for whom there is no alternative. Market prices have long since gone beyond ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... pah!—that's what I call getting vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave in the wilderness,—cut off his skirts, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... you!" said I, and kicked him. He howled with pain, but, although he was the best of house-dogs and would have brought down any thief who came near him, he did not growl at me, and quietly followed me. I am not squeamish, but I was frightened directly the oath had escaped my lips. I felt as if I had created something horrible which I could not annihilate, and that it would wait for me and do me some mischief. The dog kept closely to my heels for about a mile and I could not make him go on in front. Usually ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... are more nicely squeamish on the subject than dramatists of similar rank; they endeavour to avoid—in dialogue—the ready-made article; at the same time one notes that the important dramatist is very anxious to keep clear of ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... are fallen on evil times! There was a day when England had a wide room For honest men as well as foolish kings: But now the uneasy stomach of the time Turns squeamish at them both. Therefore let us Seek out that savage clime, where men as yet Are free: there sleeps the vessel on the tide, Her languid canvas drooping for the wind; Give us but that, and what need we to fear 90 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... performance. But most even of these will repay a visit, if not for the sake of the actors, for that of the audience. Despised by the fashionable and pleasure-seeking, they afford a rich field to the observant man. He must not, it is true, be squeamish, and fear to let the unsavoury reek of tabac-de-caporal, or the odours of potato brandy and logwood wine come betwixt the wind and his nobility. Neither must he dread contact with the mechanic's blouse, with the cotton gown of the grisette, or the velveteen vest of the titi of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... likely to do with the old monastic plate and the jewels and so on when they'd got them. They probably knew that the ancient chalices, reliquaries, and that sort of thing would fetch big prices, sold privately to collectors—especially to American collectors, who, as everybody knows, are not at all squeamish or particular about the antecedents of property so long as they secure it. I should say that Baxter, acting for his partner in crime, stored these things, and has waited for a favourable opportunity to resume possession of them. I incline to the opinion that ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... friends do not feel reluctant to side with the subjects of the Czar against the countrymen of Harnack and Eucken. One would like to know, however, since when did the Germans take up this attitude? They were not so squeamish during the "war of emancipation," which gave birth to modern Germany. At that time the people of Eastern Prussia were anxiously waiting for the appearance of Cossacks as heralds of the Russian hosts who were to emancipate them from the yoke of Napoleon. ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... enactments in bringing the keepers of such houses before the court.... Nor can we in the second place find among the foregoing records proof of the necessity of the transfer to the Registrar General of the judicial powers.... As a matter of fact, witnesses do not seem to have been at all squeamish in divulging repulsive details in open Court, nor, on the other hand, do the magistrates ever seem to have shown too exacting a disposition as to the nature or amount of the evidence they required to sustain convictions; ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... constitution of iron to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave, which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years. Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as "scald-head," and that personal filthiness was ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... maintained honour above love, his weakness, he knew, would be welded into strength, as the presence of another brings enormous support to timidity; if she declared for love,—his mind surged within him at the imagination of bursting away once and for ever the squeamish principles which for years, hedging about his conduct on this side and on that, had profited nothing those on whose behalf they had been erected and his own ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the poor now know, but which never came to the knowledge of Caesar Augustus, and which were unknown to Solomon in all his glory. Where would have been the great English nation, if the adventurous cut-throats who followed Norman William from Saint Valery to Hastings had been troubled with squeamish notions about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... kept hid for more than an hour. Suddenly I heard a tramping in the bushes, and in breaks my little gray mule. Thinks I them 'Rapahoes ain't smart; so tied her to grass. But the Injuns had scared the beaver so, I stays in my camp, eating my lariat. Then I begun to get kind o' wolfish and squeamish; something was gnawing and pulling at my inwards, like a wolf in a trap. Just then an idea struck me, that I had been there before trading liquor with ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... repitiendo, etc., to keep repeating, etc. jefe del despacho, manager llevarse bien, to get on well together lograr, to contrive, to attain machacar, to hammer, to insist mandato, order, injunction melindroso, squeamish, very particular multa, fine, penalty Noruego, Norwegian peligro, danger remolcar, to tow sacar en limpio, to make out isanto y bueno! that is all very well sargento, sergeant transportar, to transport, to convey tul bordado, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... "We're too squeamish," he said. "It comes of the long Peace. I've sent word to Costello. I suppose I'll have to appear at the inquest. They say a wise man never found a dead man. No one would accuse me of ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... and all the more on account of it, because it was lovely seeing the real thing. And he said it was a chance in a thousand, as all the camps were so orderly now, not as in Bret Harte, or as it was in his young days. And he said both Octavia and I would make splendid miners' wives not to be squeamish or silly over the "carrion" that was shot, and not to have trembling nerves today. We felt so pleased, and only that underneath I can't help being sad about Nelson, we should all have been very gay. It was about nine o'clock when we reached the car and Marcus Aurelius's welcoming smiles, and an ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... ignorant of electric light, and without half the broad spaces and great buildings of the London of to-day, still more sparkling and gayer in its effect because life was less hidden. The 'sixties were not squeamish, though they were prudish; a man's own womenfolk were less noticeable than to-day, not only in such minor detail as the exclusion of them from the tops of omnibuses; but they, after all, were but a fraction ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... because the prayers were the shortest, and not ashamed to say so; for he had an easy, jolly conscience, broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a great deal of beer or port wine—not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure; he fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners and slept the sleep of the irresponsible; for had he not kept up his charter by going to church on the Sunday afternoon? ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Fred would feel squeamish about shooting before she hurled the knife, then she was certainly right. But she knew better than to make one preliminary motion. And Kagig knew better than to permit further pleasantries. I saw him whisper to Gregor, and the ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... lion heard us an' left. He's not far," said Dale, as he stooped to lift the head of the deer. "Warm! Neck broken. See the lion's teeth an' claw marks.... It's a doe. Look here. Don't be squeamish, girls. This is only an hourly incident of everyday life in the forest. See where the lion has rolled the skin down as neat as I could do it, an' he'd just begun to bite in there when he ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... she said, "that we are getting too squeamish nowadays as to speech. Women are so frightened to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the quick answer. "But, as a matter of fact these East Indians are often carriers of bubonic plague, you know, and it's very contagious. Of course neither Shere Ali nor Singa Phut may have had the germs about them, but I am a bit squeamish when it comes to contagious diseases of that nature, and I wouldn't like to ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... circumstances, would be not only disagreeable, but disgusting to them. Rough, rude men as most of the Rangers are, little prone to delicate sentimentalism, they are, nevertheless, true to the ordinary instincts of humanity. Accustomed to seeing blood spilled, and not squeamish about spilling it if it be that of a red-skinned foe, it is different when the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... I was never, as I have said, in love with Folco's daughter; my tastes are simpler, more carnal; give me an Ippolita in my affectionate hours, and I ask nothing better. Love for me must be a jolly companion, never squeamish, never chilly, never expecting other homage than such salutations as swordsmen may use for preliminary to a hot engagement. Messer Dante has written a very beautiful book on his business, its words all fire and golden air, but I wrote my rhymes ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... grape-cakes," adds an essential feature to the words, "They turn to other gods." It points, namely, to the sinful origin of idolatry. Earnest and strict religion is substantial and wholesome food; but idolatry is soft food, which is sought only by the dainty and squeamish. That which is true of idolatry, is true also of the service of sin, and of the world in general, which, in Job xx. 12, appears under the image of meat which is, in the mouth, as sweet as honey from the comb, but which is, in the belly, changed into the gall of asps. In the symbolism of the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... any thing so mortifying? to be refused by old Mother Damnable!—with such parts and address,—and the little squeamish devils, to dislike me for a name, a sound.—O my cursed name! that it was something I could be revenged on! if it were alive, that I might tread upon it, or crush it, or pummel it, or kick it, or spit it out—for it sticks in my throat ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and with a judgment, too, in their various properties, which convinced us of her sound knowledge of their physiology, and good qualities, which she explained to her associates with all the familiarity that she would a tambouring frame, or a piece of embroidery. There was no squeamish fastidiousness; no affectation of prudery, in this; but all natural as the pure flow of admiration in a well-bred lady could be. At her most comfortable, and hospitable residence, afterward, she showed us, with pride, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... rocks I need not starve, at any rate," he remarked, grimly. "The idea of eating rats is horrid, of course, but I don't know why it should be. Certainly many persons have eaten them, and in an emergency I don't know why I should be any more squeamish than others. ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... remembered, that Whitaker was cordially attached to wine, and a greater friend to the vintner than to the apothecary, having as utter a dislike to unpalatable medicines, as the most squeamish of his patients; therefore, Dr. Toby's evidence must be taken with caution, independently of the courtly spirit that might have led him to adapt his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined, The squeamish in taste, and the narrow of mind, And the small critic wielding his delicate pen, That I sing of old Adam, the pride ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... reticence of his friend was the sort of silly thing that you get in books and plays, but never in life) was perhaps a little wanton and caused needless embarrassment both to the young wife and to us. And one need not be very squeamish to feel that it was a pity to put into the lips of a mere child, a younger sister, the rather precocious comment that she makes on the inconvenience of a secret marriage. The humour of the play was too good to need assistance from this sort ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... effective decoration. Charming results may be obtained with small outlay of either money or time. Nothing brings more birds about the house than one of these water gardens; that serves at once as drinking fountain and bath to our not over-squeamish feathered neighbors. The number of insects these destroy, not to mention the joy of their presence, would alone compensate the householder of economic bent for the cost of ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... suggested that the contrast elsewhere quoted "Merimee etait gentilhomme; Sainte-Beuve ne l'etait pas," was likely to make its unfavourable side specially felt in this connection. He seems to have disgusted even the Princess Mathilde, one of the staunchest of friends and certainly not the most squeamish or prudish of women. Nor, in another matter, can I approve his favourite mixture of rum and curacao as a liqueur. I gave it a patient trial once, thinking it might be critically inspiring. But the rum muddles the curacao, and the curacao does not really improve the rum. It is a pity ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the rabble, but as honest and highminded as he was able, seeking his country's gain, as he saw it, not his own. A more rugged and domineering character, equally certain of his right to rule and less squeamish about the means, was John Strachan, afterwards Bishop of Toronto. Educated a Presbyterian, he had come to Canada from Aberdeen as a dominie but had remained as an Anglican clergyman in a capacity promising ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... in the least squeamish about telling us that Tippoo Tib had surely buried huge quantities of ivory, and had caused to be slain afterward every one ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... so squeamish to-day; and a thinker of our own time would scarcely deny that English society is very largely governed at this moment by the same kind of rules that Sir Walter Scott thought to be so bad. But here we need not condemn English society in particular. ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... for all he's worth, and that I believe is not much." He had intended to go direct to Dunmore House from the Kellys, and to have seen Barry, but he would have had to stop for dinner if he had done so; and though, generally speaking, not very squeamish in his society, he did not wish to enjoy another after-dinner tete-a-tete with him—"It's better to get him over to Tuam," thought he, "and try and make him see rason when he's sober: nothing's too hot or too bad for him, when ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... a serious matter that our public companies, and especially our railway companies, are doing their best to degrade our language. I am not going to be squeamish and object strongly to the use of the word Metropolitan, though I think it indefensible. Still, it is too bad of them to persist in using the word bye-laws for by-laws—so establishing solidly a shocking error. ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... as our German friend does. Or if you are a prize-fighter, you ought to be a human bulldog. There's no such thing as a gentlemanly pugilist, any more than there can be a virtuous burglar. And if you're a South American Dictator, you can't afford to be squeamish about throwing your enemies into jail or shooting them for treason. The way to dictate is to dictate,—not to hide indoors all day while your ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... the Invincible, Philip of Spain Demands from England. Kneel down, Master Drake, Kneel down; for now have I this gilded sword Wherewith to strike it off. Nay, thou my lord Ambassador of France, since I be woman, And squeamish at the sight of blood, give thou The accolade." With that jest she gave the hilt (Thus, even in boldness, playing a crafty part, And dangling France before the adventurous deed) To Marchaumont: and in the face of Europe, With that huge fleet in Cadiz and the whole World-power of Spain crouching ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... a West-country word for squeamish, but the East Anglian name Creasey, Cressy, is usually for the local Kersey (Suffolk). The only solution of Pratt is that it is Anglo-Sax. praett, cunning, adopted early as a personal name, while Storr, of Scandinavian origin, means big, strong. ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... youth, who knows nothing of the secret windings of his own hotel. His father and his brother were wiser than he; and many a night have they gone in and out on visits of gallantry, when they were young enough to be as squeamish as he, or old enough to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Philip Beaufroy Barry in his essay on Anna Zwanziger—tells us that some of the methods of torture employed by criminal women are so horrible that they cannot be described without outraging the laws of decency. Less squeamish than Lombroso or Mr Barry, I gather aloud that the tortures have to do with the organs of generation. But male savages in African and American Indian tribes have a punishment for adulterous women which will match anything in that ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... witnesses further made oath, that the said Timothy lay out a-nights, and went abroad often at unseasonable hours; and it was credibly reported he did business in another family: that he pretended to have a squeamish stomach, and could not eat at table with the rest of the servants, though this was but a pretence to provide some nice bit for himself; that he refused to dine upon salt fish, only to have an opportunity to eat a calf's head (his favourite dish) ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... sensitized for their own happiness. If they receive a pleasure more exquisite than ours from a flower, a glimpse of the sea, a gracious action, they are correspondingly quick to feel dissonances, imperfections, slights. Like Lamb, they are "rather squeamish about their women and children." Like Keats, they are "snuffed out by an article." Keener pleasures, keener pains, this is the law of their life; but it is applicable to all persons of the so-called artistic temperament. It is one of the penalties of a fine organism. ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... not so squeamish, but help me to arrange everything properly, and you shall see that what you reject with such symptoms of disgust will soon complete your felicity. Let us get ready the pile for the sacrifice of to-night, and think not of eating till that is performed. Know ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... That some there are, squeamish half-thinking cowards, Who will turn pale upon you, call you murderer, And you will walk in solitude among them. A mighty evil for a strong-built mind!— Join twenty tapers of unequal height And light them joined, and you will ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight |
