"Wincing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... and wincing visibly, as if I had touched a raw spot. "No; my one hope for him is that he may never ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... and turned her eyes away, wincing with pain;—the tears were rolling slowly down his cheeks. She put her hand on his shoulder in a passion of pity; then, suddenly, fiercely, she gathered the poor bowed head against her soft breast. "I don't care! My name ain't worth as ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... not three; so why should a man with one be unhappy because he has not two? But infirmities of mind and temper are quite another matter. If one of us has no self-control, or is too weak to bear the strain of our truthful life without wincing, or is tormented by depraved appetites and superstitions, or is unable to keep free from pain and depression, he naturally becomes ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... himself nothing to live upon, could scarcely offer to share his poverty with poor Mr Wodehouse's cherished pet and darling. "I daresay she has been used to live expensively," Mr Proctor said to himself, wincing a little in his own mind at the thought. It was about one o'clock when he reached the green door—an hour at which, during the few months of his incumbency at Carlingford, he had often presented himself at that hospitable house. Poor Mr Wodehouse! Mr Proctor could not help wondering at that ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... was very animated, if not thorough. Taking turns at the basin the girls, wincing under the cold water, "polished off" the top layer of dust; brushed ruffled locks and retied ribbons; dabbed talcum on noses and straightened creased middies. They were just putting on the finishing touches when ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... grin upon his dirty face, 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
... same imposition 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 ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... have been 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 a jury-mast forward as soon as possible. They answered only by growls; ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... 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 believed ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... beating while I listened, for what man hears his honor smirched without wincing? Even so I think I would have held my tongue, only that Gooja Singh, who dozed in a niche on the other side of the funk-hole entrance, ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... as quiet as a summer cloud. Meeting or overtaking, coolies passed in single file, their bare feet slapping the enormous flags of antique, sunken granite, their twin baskets bobbing and creaking to the rhythm of their wincing trot. The yellow muscles rippled strongly over straining ribs, as with serious faces, and slant eyes intent on their path, they chanted in pairs the ageless refrain, the call and answer which make ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... was saying, it was not danger that Ormond seemed to be afraid of, if it came short of death. He was almost abnormally indifferent to pain. I knew of his undergoing an operation that most people would take ether for, and not wincing, because it was not supposed to involve ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... you behold yourself hanging on your own wall, looking as it you could direct kingdoms or lead armies, you feel grateful to the artist. He ministers to your self-love, and you pay him his hire without wincing. Your heart warms towards him as it would towards a poet who addresses you in an ode of panegyric, the kindling terms of which—a little astonishing to your friends—you believe in your heart of hearts to be the simple truth, and, in the matter of expression, not over-coloured in the ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... the scoundrel," replied 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
... the cold edge of the steel close to his head. The supplementary alguazil and the rabble of children took to their heels in affright, followed by the dogs, who seemed to sympathize in their alarm. But, beyond a slight wincing downwards, and a partial contraction of his eyes and lips, the object of the Teniente's wrath made no movement, nor uttered a word of expostulation. He evidently expected to lose his ears, and probably was surprised at nothing except the pause in the operation. My own apprehensions were only ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... 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 by sea and land, these grave thinkers and churchmen, they ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 in both, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the big brute, I obeying without wincing after the first stroke; and so he went on, flaying my poor hands until he had given me six "pandies," as the boys called the infliction, on each, by which time both of my palms were as raw as a piece of ordinary beefsteak, and, I'm certain, ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... you for wincing at my first setting out, I promise you, that if the lady have a million of faults, each of them high as huge Olympus, I will see them as with the eye of a flatterer-not ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... replied Dick, accepting the hand of the friendly teller in his one good palm, and yet wincing ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... approval of others, and, lo! one morning he awoke in Hades to find himself the despised of the despised, and the laughing stock of the very Devil. I saw few more pitiable sights than that of this wretched creature, slinking shamefacedly through hell, and wincing, as from a blow, at the glance ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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 officer ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... 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 ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... owed him, and he recalled the words in which he had begged him to wait another year, and the look of perplexity and resignation which had appeared on the tailor's face. 'Oh, my God, my God!' he repeated, wincing and trying to drive away the intolerable thought. 'All the same and in spite of everything she loved me,' thought he of the girl they had talked about at the farewell supper. 'Yes, had I married her I should not now be owing anything, and as it is I am in debt to Vasilyev.' ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... then. There was no resentment; there was no fire of anger, which I should have expected; there was no manly and no stolid disregard of what had been done. There was instead a slight smile, which to this day I cannot bear to recall; it spoke so much of patient and helpless humiliation; as of one wincing at the galling of a sore and trying not to show he winced. Preston took me off my horse, and began to speak. I turned away from him to Darry, who now held two horses, Preston having just dismounted; and I thanked him for my pleasure, ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... my own conduct, and the superior manliness of Miss Vernon's, and assured her, that she need not fear my wincing under criticism which I ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... often, basking under similar tributes—was it the conjugal note that robbed them of their savour? No—for, oddly enough, it became apparent that he was fond of Mrs. Gisburn—fond enough not to see her absurdity. It was his own absurdity he seemed to be wincing under—his own attitude as an ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... 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 gave her directions and the man obeyed swiftly and unquestioningly. He watched her probe the wound, saw her eyes narrow, knew that she had made her diagnosis. As she washed the ugly hole in the flesh and made her own bandage Brocky Lane was wincing, his eyes again open. Both men were watching her now, the same look in each eager pair of eyes. But until she had done and, with Norton's help, had made Lane as comfortable as possible upon his crude bed, she gave no answer to their mute pleading. Then she sat down upon the stone floor, ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... 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
... wincing as if she had been struck. "How can you speak to me like that? I don't doubt you think it is all true. I don't doubt he said he would throw her over and marry you. But he didn't mean it. You never suppose he is going to give up Miss Laura and all that money, to marry a girl that is nobody and has ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... 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
... 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 difficulty that ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... the watchword of the State and persecution its means of action. Koloman Tisza concluded with the monarch a tacit pact under which the Magyar Government was to be left free to deal as it pleased with the non-Magyars as long as it supplied without wincing the recruits and the money required for the joint army. The Magyar Parliament became almost exclusively representative of the Magyar minority of the people. Out of the 413 constituencies of Hungary proper ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... silence. His head was so square. She wanted him to rage and she to hurl herself against his storm. Her whole being wanted a lashing. She could pinch herself to the capacity of her strength without wincing. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... him coolly from top to toe. Tom took it without wincing, but inwardly he felt as if ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... 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
... starting away from the boat and shooting through the sunlit depths. But no sound or motion on shore was heard or seen. Near the lake we came to a long, shallow rapid, when we pulled off our shoes and stockings, and, with our trousers rolled above our knees, towed the boat up it, wincing and cringing amid the sharp, slippery stones. With benumbed feet and legs we reached the still water that forms the stem of the lake, and presently saw the arms of the wilderness open and the long ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... hurt and spoiling the game with their tears and complaints. It is so much better when we have to deal with people who, like little Pansy, do not break easily. Some of them will laugh off the hardest words without wincing at all. You can jostle them as you will, but they don't fall down every time you shove them, and they don't cry every time they are pushed aside. You can't but like them, they take life so heartily ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... earnest thoughtfulness than she had used in preparing to receive Gerard to-night. This was no time for coquetry; as he came for her, she would go to him, she knew, without evasion or pretense to harass his weakness. She shrank, wincing sensitively, from this rough criticism, but every member of the family had learned not to reply to ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... lay quite still. And so, hardly wincing, she let him lave the jagged wound that stretched from her right temple up into the first tendrils of ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... native merit, grandeur to the grand in soul, as light kindles light: nature presents the example. His early training, his bright beginning of life, had taught him to look to earth's principal fruits as his natural portion, and it was owing to a girl that he stood a mark for tongues, naked, wincing at the possible malignity of a pair of harridans. Why not whistle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... opened his eyes. Uncle Guy stood before him. "I jes' taut I'd drap in, Kurnel, but didn't speck ter fin' yer sleep," said he, wincing under the Mayor's abstracted gaze. "Oh, I don' want nut'n; don' make er scratch on dat paper. I ain't beggin'," he exclaimed, as the Mayor, recovering, reached for his pen. "That's so Guy; you needn't be a beggar as long ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... got crazy, 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
... automatically from the wincing, panic-stricken child, that felt cut off and lost in a horror ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... to what noise they made. Don felt Tim take his arm to help him. He hobbled and hopped and squirmed, and only paused when the tender ankle brought him up wincing and shivering. ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... belonging to Peebles, had been sitting at church for some time listening attentively to a strong representation from the pulpit of the guilt of deceit and falsehood in Christian characters. He was observed to turn red, and grow very uneasy, until at last, as if wincing under the supposed attack upon himself personally, he roared out, "Indeed, minister, there's mair leears in Peebles than me." As examples of this class of persons possessing much of the dry humour of their more sane countrymen, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... had no money. "I'm flat broke, Tracy," he announced, for he knew Sargeant well enough to make the confession without wincing. "No, I'll not get in; but I'll go up and watch ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... 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 ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... natural," replied the sailor, "although I confess I could not help wincing under the thought of its being entertained. I knew that, on my return, I should be enabled to explain every thing, but yet felt nettled that even my short absence should, as I knew it must, give rise to any strictures on my conduct. It was that soreness of feeling which induced ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... have devised a more intolerable situation. So thought Steele Weir as he strode away from the dwelling, still laboring under the emotions provoked by the girl's disclosure, wincing at his own biting thoughts and writhing at his own helplessness. It needed only this revelation to ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... to shield the head, though common in the contests on the village greens, was in its way no doubt more foolish than our pads; for though a sturdy yokel might take a severe blow from a cudgel on his bare arm, without wincing, the toughest arm in England would have had ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... RAINA (wincing). Ah, don't talk of it in that flippant way. I lied: I know it. But I did it to save your life. He would have killed you. That was the second time I ever uttered a falsehood. (Bluntschli rises quickly and looks doubtfully ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... time he had heard her voice, and he started at the sound, wincing as, with one quick, furtive glance, he ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... ceased her struggling. He still held her by the wing, and they lay on the ground and looked at each other. He tried to growl threateningly, ferociously. She pecked on his nose, which by now, what of previous adventures was sore. He winced but held on. She pecked him again and again. From wincing he went to whimpering. He tried to back away from her, oblivious to the fact that by his hold on her he dragged her after him. A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. The flood of fight ebbed down in him, and, releasing his prey, he turned tail and ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... 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, ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Calhoun found himself wincing a little. The driver was not angry. He was hopeless. But men should not despair. They shouldn't accept hostility from those about them as a device of fate for ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... though Fear's very self had laid hold of his soul by the heels and would not let it go until its vision of itself was absolute. He was afraid with a great fear such as he had never dreamed to know; who knew well the wincing of the flesh from risk of pain, the shuddering of the spirit in the shadow of death, and horror such as had gripped him that morning in poor ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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, an inch in diameter, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... the pastime of the household to make rather a butt of him, and for the most part he bore himself under the difficulties of his position peaceably enough, though there had been times when his weighty retorts had caused some sharp wincing. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... probably, they have been dragooned into submission. Their teats are tender at first; but an unfeeling, horny hand tugs at them at stripping, as if the animal had been accustomed to the operation for years. Can the creature be otherwise than uneasy? And how can she escape the wincing but by flinging out her heels?—Then hopples are placed on the hind fetlocks, to keep her heels down. The tail must then be held by some one, while the milking is going on; or the hair of its tuft be converted into a double cord, to ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... he; yet 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, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... what is there to be astonished at in such an intention?" said the Marchese, evidently wincing under the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... with very bad grace, wincing, when she added, "And give my dearest love to Cecile!" As he disappeared in the rue d'Assas, the girl turned as if to go, but then suddenly remembering Hastings, looked at him and ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... he laughed with pleasure as the water caught him and fell away. The towel reminded him how sore were his forehead and his neck, blistered both to a state of rawness by the sun. He touched them very cautiously to dry them, wincing, and smiling at ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... 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 listening a ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... of religious dance, in which the young braves test their fortitude and stoicism in resisting pain and torture without wincing. A young officer, who witnessed the "Sun Dance" last year, at the Cheyenne agency, a few miles above Fort Sully, on the Missouri River, gives the ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... forget all that, Mater," he said, wincing slightly. "Anyway, if I don't turn out a better Tommy than I did a Prince, they won't have me in the regiment long. But I'm not going to get the push this time, if I can help it. Come, Mater," he concluded, "don't worry any more over what's done and can't be undone—just try and make ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... was a 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 ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... 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 Laptev of his own ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... already. He had fought too long, too hard. He would begin to babble and giggle soon 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
... of the room, closing the door gently behind him. Ellerey raised himself on the couch, wincing with the pain his arm gave him, but determined to balk the Ambassador while he had the opportunity. It was evident that if he remained there Lord Cloverton would force him to this journey, and he was too weak to offer any real resistance, but once in the streets he could hide ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... but when a fellow can go and set a man's barn afire, without wincing, he's worse than I am; that's ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... among the affluent classes of civilization, testify only too clearly how seldom this mastery is obtained. How rare indeed to meet a man! How common rather to discover a creature hounded on by tyrant thoughts (or cares or desires), cowering, wincing under the lash—or perchance priding himself to run merrily in obedience to a driver that rattles the reins and persuades him that he is free—whom we cannot converse with in careless tete-a-tete because that alien presence is always ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... fire made of a few small pieces of medicinal roots. I removed it for him, and he always walked with his head much more erect than he needed to do ever afterward. Both men and women submit to an operation without wincing, or any of that shouting which caused young students to faint in the operating theatre before the introduction of chloroform. The women pride themselves on their ability to bear pain. A mother will address ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... call for an answer and he made none. He stepped to his horse's head, lifted the wincing forefoot very tenderly, and stooping close to it looked at it for a long time. The girl was behind the broad, stooping back. Impulsively her hand crept into the bosom of her dress, her face going steadily white as her fingers curved and tightened about the grip of the small calibre revolver ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... Please get under cover at once." The proprietorship in the tone stung Saxham to wincing. "Good-morning, ma'am," he cried to the Mother-Superior, "we know you ignore bullets. So long, Doctor. Hope I shan't count one in your day's casualty-bag. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... 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 the ...
— 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
... 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
... "Well?" said the doctor, wincing, as the skipper unrolled the map on the dresser-like table, and catching up first one specimen bottle and then another used them as paper-weights to keep the chart flat, while he began to operate with his big rough, brown, ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... towards one of the first 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
... 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 ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... 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 the barbs; thou must make them ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Maxime Dalahaide's ears and reached his dimmed consciousness. The danger was not for him alone, but for the others who were risking everything to save him. It was this thought which seemed to grip him, and shake him into sudden animation. He sat up, resting on one elbow, not even wincing at the grinding pain that gnawed within the ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... 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; but ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... wincing. "She's younger than Brian." Where had he read that youth was cruel? "Yes, I could have been ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... 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
... ignited lucifer without winking. A few respectable-looking men, to get up in the room and make speeches on the subject of the mesmeric science, will also be treated with. Quakers' hats and coats are kept on the premises. Any little boy who has been accustomed at school to bear the cane without wincing will be liberally ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... who had welcomed me any time and anywhere; and Madeleine Chaine; and slender Antonia above all, with the Italian woman's ardent and theatrical face, ebony-framed, and wearing a hat of Parisian splendor. For Antonia is very elegant since she married Veron. I could not help wincing when I saw that lanky woman, who had clung to me in venturesome rooms, now assiduous around us in her ceremonious attire. But how far off ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... fancy he never 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, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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
... with the authorities of the road-mending department; but the Cheap Jack's wrath fell upon his horse. He beat him over the knees for stumbling, and across the hind legs for slipping, and over his face for wincing, and accompanied his blows with a torrent ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Lucy, wincing at the word. "I see now why you wanted me to tell Cecil, and what you meant by 'some other source.' You knew that you had told Miss Lavish, and that ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... 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 young man? Literary reticence is not Whitman's stronghold; and this reticence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not," replied Oh-Pshaw, wincing with the pain, "though it hurts like fury. I guess ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... dwindled, dwindled, dwindled, poor old Richards keeping tally of the count, wincing when a name resembling his own was pronounced, and waiting in miserable suspense for the time to come when it would be his humiliating privilege to rise with Mary and finish his plea, which he was intending to word thus: ". . . for until now we have never done any wrong ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... children had 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, it was staggering, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... marital!" sighed 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
... said De Berg, hurriedly, wincing as he spoke, under the hands of the surgeon, who by this time had cut off boot and trousers, and was manipulating ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... 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 Ardan, I cannot exactly say. But certainly they were ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... who 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, with a pen in his hand, to apply the theory, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... District Court at Springfield, three months later, he referred publicly for the first time to the Dred Scott case. Senator, and not Judge, Douglas was much in evidence. He swallowed the opinion of the majority of the court without wincing—the obiter dictum and all. Nay, more, he praised the Court for passing, like honest and conscientious judges, from the technicalities of the case to the real merits of the questions involved. The material, controlling points of the case were: first, that a negro descended from ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... he said, wincing at his own words as if they pierced him. "There was opportunity enough with that De Merri. I was blind then. And with this new puppy! Women and lovers have the ingenuity of devils in devising opportunities. And they both admit their interview in the garden. But that he could have ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... 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 ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... Dan couldn't help wincing when the meteors peppered down past. The "flak" of space. Below he could see the meteors flare up brightly as they hit the atmosphere. Most of those near his position were small, none bigger than a baseball, ...
— Shipwreck in the Sky • Eando Binder
... as it's turned out I altogether regret it. I can talk with you a great deal better than I could write to you in regard to your"—Sewell hesitated between the words poems and verses, and finally said—"work. I have blamed myself a great deal," he continued, wincing under the hurt which he felt that he must be inflicting on the young man as well as himself, "for not being more frank with you when I saw you at home in September. I hope your ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... watching a motion picture, I watched the sky and the earth turn over and over, and I heard my voice mouthing wordless shouts of fear. Catherine's cry of pain and fright came, and I listened as my mind reconstructed it this time without wincing. Then the final crash, the horrid wave of pain and the sear of the flash-fire. I went through my own horror and self condemnation, and my concern over Catherine. I didn't shut if off. ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... her feet—with wincing reluctance for every muscle in her small person made its lameness felt, and she limped when she began to walk. The rejected pile of clothing had disappeared from her side, but the fringed moccasins were left, and very humbly she drew them on. Her stockings were not those in which ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... centre of Mrs. Willy P. Goldmark's yellow and gold drawing-room, under a thousand-candle-power chandelier, with reflectors aimed at her from every point of the compass. I had seen her wincing and shivering there in her outraged nudity at one of the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... Barradine, although still wincing, had recovered composure, and what he said now appeared to be an implied excuse for the sharpness of his protest. "When you get to my time of life, you'll perhaps know ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... 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 of excitement, fever of excitement; transport. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... morning light, while the birds began to sing, and the sheep tried to find food on the dewy ground, George Dawe tied a cloth tightly across my naked chest, and I could not help wincing at the pain. Just as he was finishing, Jacob Buddle got slowly up from the ground. He had been badly stunned, but ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... 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 them ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... perfectly-fitting frock-coat, a silk hat, trousers with the regulation fold back and front, an orchid buttonhole, grey gloves, boots that glittered, and carried a gold-topped cane. The fact that Paul wheeled without wincing showed that he was not yet in debt. Your Grub Street old-time author would have leaped his own length at the touch. But Paul, with a clean conscience, turned slowly, and gazed without recognition into the clean-shaven, calm, cold face ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Miss Marty, wincing, with a catch of her breath. "I fear I must have run a thorn ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Wincing at the words, which slipped out unconsciously as the conductor thought of what might have happened to the boy, Bob hastened to ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... couldn't cry out, and this blow was followed by a second which sent the blood flaming through his veins, and then by another which brought all the blood into one point in his body. He seemed to lose consciousness of everything but three inches of back. Nine blows he bore without wincing; the tenth overcame his fortitude, and he had ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... captain, wincing a little, and looking exceedingly puzzled—"just so; but ain't thar no day but Sunday for a man to ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Adam, with a sudden grasp on her wrist. "My God! one must go first; and I could naither leave you nor close these eyes of yours." He put his other hand across his eyelids, his lower features wincing. "Sweetheart," said Adam, removing it, and taking her head between his palms, "for what we have already received the Lord make us duly thankful. And shut up about the rest. And there's grace said for dinner: excepting I didn't uncover ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... down to the shore, please." Jan generally had his times of punishment quite private with the boys, the grove behind the house being the usual place of execution. He could not, however, refuse Nono's modest request. Off to the shore they went together, the twins meanwhile shrugging and wincing, as if they themselves were undergoing the ordeal, while they said to each other, "He'll catch it! It won't feel good!"—not without some satisfaction, mingled with a sense of the ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... evidently had a hypnotizing effect upon the dazed girl. Slowly, wincing, she stood up, and with his help gathered together some of her belongings which he put in the pack he carried on his shoulders. She wrapped herself in her warmest outdoor clothing. He then put his hand upon ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... 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 quite ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... answered Lady Arabel, wincing. "Merely lighthearted ... too dretfully Bohemian ... ingenious, you know, in ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... never have marked him at all—could scheme and execute crimes so horrible and inexcusable. In common charity to human nature, let us suppose the wretch is mad; because otherwise his miserable vanity would be too loathsome." I spoke with warmth and bitterness, which increased as I perceived him wincing under the degradation of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... "Uncle," said she, wincing a little at the name, as a horse with a sore back winces at the touch of the saddle, "it wasn't about the sheep that I was going to speak to you. I want you to do ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... died? She had read somewhere lately that physical delicacy was apt to react on the mind and make one's ideas too fine-spun and unsubstantial. Here was the advantage which a man like Mr. Lyons had over Wilbur. He was strong and thickset, and looked as though he could endure hard work without wincing. So could she. It was a great boon, an essential of effective manhood or womanhood. These thoughts followed in the wake of the enthusiasm his personality had aroused in her at the close of his address. She scarcely heard ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... in the mysteries of the Fleet, and reconciled in some measure to the customs of the place, he began to bear the edge of reflection without wincing; and thinking it would be highly imprudent in him to defer any longer the purposes by which only he could enjoy any ease and satisfaction in his confinement, he resolved to resume his task of translating, and every week compose ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... 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
... rough consoler to a man when wincing under an attack of this kind. "Never mind, sir," said he to Goldsmith, when he saw that he felt the sting. "A man whose business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock; if ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... 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 ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... replied the man, wincing as Paul deliberately cut away the dead flesh. "We know now why it is that we are all ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... agreeable situation in Bath, especially the upper side of it; but the avenues to it are mean, dirty, dangerous, and indirect. Its communication with the Baths, is through the yard of an inn, where the poor trembling valetudinarian is carried in a chair, betwixt the heels of a double row of horses, wincing under the curry-combs of grooms and postilions, over and above the hazard of being obstructed, or overturned by the carriages which are continually making their exit or their entrance — I suppose after some chairmen ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... you are corrupt and cruel," said Lydia, without wincing. "I have not been blind. I have seen your efforts to lead him on—to tempt him into the belief that you loved him, when your sole thought has been of the money that ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... replied 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. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... 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. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... three. For half 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 ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... light twenty-gauge shotgun. She had a first lesson in shooting, in keeping her eyes open, not wincing, understanding that the bead at the end of the barrel really had something to do with pointing the gun. She was radiant; she almost believed Sam when he insisted that it was she who had shot the mallard at which they had ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... against any manifestation of showing pleasure in anything. "It wasn't bad," is about the highest expression of our praise; and I doubt if we would accord more to heaven—if we got there. The grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of amusement without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor is any expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He would admit that "the Governor"—meaning his father—was surprised; he would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... 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
... 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 he had gone mad. They ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... said Dick, though he could not help wincing a little at the idea; and soon after, with his scarlet jacket hidden by the lieutenant's long, loose garment, which also well concealed the musical instruments, they ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... Brookenham took without wincing whatever, as between a masterful relative and an exposed frivolity, might have been the sting of it. "That you must ask Edward. I haven't the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... any of you to survive here." The commander wiped at his swollen lips, wincing, and an almost child-like petulance came into his tone. "You weren't supposed ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... her 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 ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... must occasionally twist his heel though he twist it off in the performance. Dance we must, and dance we shall; that is settled; the question of magnitude is, Shall we caper jocundly with the good grace of an easy conscience, or submit to shuffle half-heartedly with a sense of shame, wincing under the slow stroke of our own rebuking eye? To this momentous question let us now intelligently address our minds, sacredly pledged, as becomes lovers of truth, to its determination in the manner most agreeable to our desires; ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... chosen the position, warmly displayed his Russian patriotism (Kutuzov could not listen to this without wincing) by insisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as daylight to Kutuzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutuzov who had brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... 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
... 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 own ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly |
