"Wincing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stalwart optimist that the working class is honoured. He arrays himself in court dress at the palaces of kings, receives honorary degrees at Universities, and is kept before the public by the newspaper paragraphist, without wincing or pretending to dislike it. Why should the workman not be esteemed by kings and universities? Mr. Burns asks. So great is his self-respect that the respect of others is taken as a matter of course. Much of the criticism that has been directed against Mr. John Burns misses the mark, ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... care and 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 the new Isabel's ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 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
... earnest wish is not to disturb your peace. I have nothing to expect, and little to fear, in life—There are wounds that can never be healed—but they may be allowed to fester in silence without wincing. ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... imprisonment, Mr. Ramsey to nine months, and Mr. Kemp to three months. Mr. Foote especially behaved with great dignity and courage in a most difficult position, and heard his cruel sentence without wincing, and with the calm words, "My Lord, I thank you; it is worthy your creed." A few of us at once stepped in, to preserve to Mr. Ramsey his shop, and to Mr. Foote his literary property; Dr. Aveling undertook ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... and the Nilghai opened his eyes. The old chanty whereof he, among a very few, possessed all the words was not a pretty one, but Dick had heard it many times before without wincing. Without prelude he launched into that stately tune that calls together and troubles the hearts of the gipsies ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... thousands, even 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 there, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... 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. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... sang out 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
... against it, decided against even the usual brushing of her hair to- night, and sprang into bed to lie flat on her tired back, watching Mary Lou make up Georgie's bed with dislocating yawns, and Georgie, wincing as she put her hair into tight "kids." Susan slept in a small space bounded by the foot of the bed, the head of the bed, the wall, and her cousin's large person, and, as Mary Lou generally made the bed in the morning ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Vane, wincing at each word she said. But at last, by a mighty effort, he mastered himself, and, coming to Mrs. Woffington with a quivering lip, he held out his hand suddenly in a very manly way. "I have been the dupe of my own vanity," said he, "and ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... deprived of free speech and struck down by the knife of the assassin; and could it be expected that a Negro would be spared? The times were exciting and dangerous, and yet Anderson was determined to take his place and work on in the path of duty, never wincing, but ...
— 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
... which is peeping through the chinks in the boot. The horses, with drooping heads, and each with a mane and tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse, are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and rattling the harness; and now and then, one of them lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying, in a whisper, that he should like to assassinate the coachman. The coachman himself is in the watering-house; and the waterman, with his hands forced ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 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 me ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... to the volume of his 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
... 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
... though not quite to the point, it strikes me," answered Boyd, wincing under the not too gentle touch of the inebriate's shaking hand. "But how am I to get out of this? blind and nearly helpless as ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... "The army," he said, wincing imperceptibly. "Oh! that was the Paymaster's old notion. Once I almost fell in with it, and as odd a thing as you could imagine put an end to the scheme. Do you know what it was?" He glanced at her with a ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... swilled time after time, and it seemed to him 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 his ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... 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
... venomous whip-cracking came out of a pillar of dust fifty yards away, where a cart had broken down. A thin, high Kathiawar mare, with eyes and nostrils aflame, rocketed out of the jam, snorting and wincing as her rider bent her across the road in chase of a shouting man. He was tall and grey-bearded, sitting the almost mad beast as a piece of her, and scientifically lashing his ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose confronted Byrne without wincing, while with that testiness which lurks so often at the bottom ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... type, quick, ironical, sentimental, and on his knees before the woman he adored but did not want to marry. Maurice Pervin was different. He came of a good old country family—the Grange was not a very great distance from Oxford. He was passionate, sensitive, perhaps over-sensitive, wincing—a big fellow with heavy limbs and a forehead that flushed painfully. For his mind was slow, as if drugged by the strong provincial blood that beat in his veins. He was very sensitive to his own mental slowness, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... from top to toe. Tom took it without wincing, but inwardly he felt as if he must shake ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... the 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
... occasions, and was often not a little touched by the meekness with which the elder lady bore her persecutions. Fanny loved to torture her in her husband's presence (who, poor fellow, was also in happy ignorance about his wife's early history), and the other bore her agony, wincing as little as might be. I sometimes would remonstrate with Madam Harry, and ask her was she a Red Indian, that she tortured her victims so? "Have not I had torture enough in my time?" says the young lady, and looked as though she was ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... she knows too much to leave her behind. For a second I mean to pay her back, and for a third, although you may think it strange, I'm mad for her. I tell you she looked wondrous standing with her back against that wall, her marble face never wincing when I told her all the lie about young de Cressi's death—which will be holy truth when I get a chance at him—watching me out of those ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... all knew and dreaded what was coming. I looked round at their strange faces. When I saw their wincing attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes, I wondered that I had ever believed them to ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... Wincing at the words, which slipped out unconsciously as the conductor thought of what might have happened to the boy, Bob hastened to defend the engineer ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... 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, To passion.... Also his tongue at times is hard ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the tangled brush and briers. When at last they were ready to push on across Lake St. Louis the maid's skirt was torn in a dozen places, and a thorn had got into her hand, which Danton carefully removed with the point of his knife, wincing and flushing with her at each twinge of pain. During the rest of the day, they had an Iroquois lesson, and by the end of the afternoon when the sun was low, and Menard headed for the shore of Isle Perrot, the maid was bright again, laughing over ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... enough to make sure of his course back. Then he plodded along, wincing with the pain of many blows that ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... most noble heart,", the Knight said, with calmness; neither wincing at the blow upon the table, nor at the "unlike other men," ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Chauvinism." Magyarization became 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 more than 400 were compelled, by pressure, bribery, and gerrymandering, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... near: under golden stars it was chilling 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 ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... long that Flora had to recall him to himself by a murmured "Papa—your lead." Then he apologised by a faint as if inward ejaculation "Beg your pardon, Captain." Naturally she addressed Anthony as Roderick and he addressed her as Flora. This was all the acting that was necessary to judge from the wincing twitch of the old man's mouth at every uttered "Flora." On hearing the rare "Rodericks" he had sometimes a scornful grimace as faint and faded and colourless as ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... cried John, wincing, with a kind of sorry giggle; and I don't know whether he looked or felt the more sheepish. His face showed every signal of humiliation, he tugged nervously at his beard, but his eyes, in spite of him, his very blue blue eyes were full of ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... gestures that began it. Viola had never been able to control his gestures; she had never been able to get used to them; and there were two in particular that made her wince still as she had winced in the beginning. She had contracted the habit of wincing in response to them. Whenever Jimmy jerked his thumb over his shoulder you saw her blink; and whenever he cracked his knuckles she shrank back. The blink followed the jerk, and the shrinking followed the cracking as the flash follows the snap of ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... 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 was ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... licking so pluckily, ought to face bad luck in a less cowardly fashion than you have this afternoon? You'll meet worse things than lines before you're ten years older; and, Ray, I want you always to face your fate, whatever it may be, as you faced my cane—teeth set, no wincing." ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... 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 History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... but when a fellow can go and set a man's barn afire, without wincing, he's worse than I am; that's all I've ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... VIVIE [wincing] Oh, stop, stop. Let us have no more of that horrible cant. Mr Praed: if there are really only those two gospels in the world, we had better all kill ourselves; for the same taint is ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Moravia. Our march was straggling. Foremost strode Alcibiade Tourniquet, jeweller and native of Argenteuil, the best fellow in the world: but one who would persist in marching in a pair of Parisian boots with high, tapering heels, bearing the pain they gave with little wincing. For him the ground we trod was classical, for we were in the neighbourhood of Austerlitz. Immediately in his rear swaggered the Austrian, with swarthy features and black straggling locks, swaddled and dirty; ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... he demanded in fierce disgust. "I have told you that I believe in the conventions—and I violate every one of them. I'm a spectacle for gods and men!" His face was stern with self-disgust: he forced himself to meet her gaze, wincing under it; but he ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... he 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 you ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... her slim hand with its small, crushable bones in an excited grip. He was bending forward, not looking at the palm, but at her. Sheila pulled back, wincing a little. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... his evil glance quite bravely, wincing when he invited her to leave the yard. But she came nearer, crossing the rank, soaking grass, and stood beside him where he ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... could look upon that man's face without wincing. In early scalping-days it had been slashed on one side with a scalping-knife in such a way that the left eye was totally destroyed, and a livid scar ran from the eyebrow to the neck—drawing the flesh into creases that robbed that part of the face of any semblance to humanity. The other ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... was afraid as 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 ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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, and Dan took comfort in the fact that his rocket was small too, ...
— Shipwreck in the Sky • Eando Binder
... warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed for twins. This resemblance always reminded ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... order him a powerful dose of alcohol. This somewhat rallied up his spirit and warmed his heart; all the time of the operation, however, he kept his eyes riveted on the wound, with his teeth set, and a whimsical wincing of the countenance, that occasionally gave his nose something of its usual ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... first time he had heard her voice, and he started at the sound, wincing as, with one quick, furtive glance, he met ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... staggering blow, but the Marquis was a fighting man and he took it without wincing. Packard, discussing the situation with him one day, pointed out to him that the cattle could not possibly be stall-fed before they were slaughtered as no cattle feed was raised short of the corn country, hundreds of miles to ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... De Berg, hurriedly, wincing as he spoke, under the hands of the surgeon, who by this time had cut off boot and trousers, and ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... my love! Go at once with his lordship," he had said, when Sir Patrick had presented Lord Wensleydown. And wincing at the sentence, Theodora had allowed herself to ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... had a dab of flour on the left cheek, and a smutch of crock on her forehead. She had, too, a cut finger on her right hand, and a burned thumb on her left. But she was Billy—and being Billy, she advanced with a bright smile and held out a cordial hand—not even wincing when the cut finger came under ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... twin-brother for all the false men and foolish girls in Christendom!" said Gurdon, standing before Fluke's threat, with folded arms, and such a look at him that Fluke came to himself, wincing. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... whether a courageous Roman captive who was shorn of his eyelids, and set under the blistering sun of Africa, suffered any more keenly; but motionless, apparently impassive as a stone mask, on whose features pitiless storms beat in vain, she bore without wincing the agony of her humiliation. Very white and still, she sat hour by hour with downcast eyes, and folded hands; and those who watched most closely could detect only one change of position; now and then she raised her clasped hands, and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... know what is the policy of your own firm," suggested Harmon, wincing, and displaying his teeth under his bright red lips; "and all we wish to know is, what Neergard expects us to pay for this rascally lesson in the a-b-c ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... he remonstrated, wincing as she returned, flinging her energetic little body against him. "I have the rheumatism like the ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... 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 ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... said, wincing. "But as for Theobald, never fret about that, Gran. We were only brother and sister, ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... 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 ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... wincing, how he loved to bring out the word "wife." "That's up to her," he answered. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... what is there to be astonished at in such an intention?" said the Marchese, evidently wincing ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to keep my fingers off the weak, and to clench my fist against the strong—to carry no tales out of school—to stand forth like a true man—obey the stern order of a PANDE MANUM, and endure my pawmies without wincing, like one that is determined not to be the better for them. In a word, before I knew thee, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Burr, wincing at the vice-like grip of his new acquaintance, placidly responded: "Yes, there are few men more worthy of esteem than was my admirable friend Mr. Hamilton—whom ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... his leave 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 ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... brand me, Perth?" wincing for a moment with the pain; "have I been but forging my ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... he returned, wincing under her cruel thrust, but persistent, "but we are not discussing ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... one 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, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... There, she gave the book to Captain Gambier, and begged him to hold it open before her, with a passing light of eyes likely to be rather disturbing to a jealous spectator. The Captain seized the book without wincing, and displayed a remarkable equanimity of countenance as he held it out, according to direction. No sooner had Emilia struck a prelude of the well-known air, than the interior of the booth was transfigured; legs began to move, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... an unpleasant thing to say, and he was not beyond wincing a little. None the less, he would ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... it. She was glad it wasn't like Oliver; Jane saw her being glad of that. She was beginning to fall in love with a young naval officer, but still she couldn't have seen Oliver in Jane's child without wincing. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... loui'dores. The 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 white walls, the reflection from which, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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 different tones by the ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... 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 and obliterated all ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... made it look queer like Saxy's Pilgrim's Progress picture book. Then the panic for home and his business came upon him and he slid weakly down the shallow white steps, and crunched his white feet on the gravel wincing. He had just taken to the grass at the edge and was managing better than he had hoped when a neat little coupe rounded the curve of the drive, and his favorite doctor came swinging up to the steps, eyeing him keenly. Billy started ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... 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 their destruction. They ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... poor Densher, these enquiries as he could, listening with interest, yet with discomfort; wincing in particular, dry journalist as he was, to find it seemingly supposed of him that he had put his pen—oh his "pen!"—at the service of private distinction. The ear of society?—they were talking, or almost, as if he had publicly ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... them with a good-humored word besides her promise. She had given no sign of injury or disapproval; she was not one of the wincing sort; and the tremulous tramp was in her own chair before ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... exactly commission," I answered, wincing. "Still, a friendly word, you know. One good ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... 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 ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... from no book or printed form, but the outpouring of his simple, honest heart, and Richard heard it, wincing a little as Andy thus made confession for him of his own sins; but he did not pray himself, though he was glad of Andy's prayers, and placed great hopes upon them. God would hear Andy, and if he did not send Ethie back at once, he would surely keep ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... 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, they sit and talk ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... 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
... you on the leg, that you have transferred it to your arm?" So saying, with the dexterity of a monkey, he flung a bit of silver into the gray felt hat which the beggar held in his ailing arm. The mendicant received both the alms and the sarcasm without wincing, and continued, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... holy duty of self-preservation, Victor sat fully dressed, with every other provision made for flight at the first flash of warning, only waiting to make sure, and with what impatience was apparent in the working of paste-coloured features, the wincing and shifting of slotted eyes, the incessant shutting and unclosing ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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, throwing ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... without defense," resumed Blue Cap; "for one who cannot stretch out his neck without wincing, it is always a pity. When one has teeth to bite, then it is different. You have tusks? Well, show them, and look ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... 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 number of ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... 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 ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... the truth," replied the man, wincing as Paul deliberately cut away the dead flesh. "We know now why it is that ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... of wonder at the beast. Commonly it tired his arm worse with thrashing it during his hour's ride, than the exercise of his goose and sleeve-board did for a whole day; but now he was fain to pull it in. It was to no purpose; faster than ever it dashed on, prancing, running sideways, wincing, and beginning to show a most ugly temper. What, in the name of all Balaams, could possess the animal, he could not for his life conceive! The only chance of safety appeared to lie in clinging with both arms and legs to it, like a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... 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 ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... in the world entirely to Lady Laura, and that he was ungrateful to feel himself ever dull in her society. And, moreover, there was something to be done in the world beyond making love and being merry. Mr. Kennedy could occupy himself with a blue book for hours together without wincing. So Phineas went to work again with his Alison, and read away till ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... Lavender, wincing under the rebuke, but fancying that she would soon repent her of this resolve. In the mean time, if she would have it so, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... Harriet pleaded wincing when she saw Lionel bound and helpless. Lionel then reproached her. She knew perfectly that she deserved it and felt her love for him growing greater. Everybody was in a most dreadful state of mind. Then a page rushed in and cried that Queen Anne was coming toward them, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... not help wincing, just a little. The matter-of-fact way in which his companion accepted the estimate of his insignificance was humiliating. Jed did not blame him, it was true, of course, but the truth hurt—a little. He was ashamed of ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... so gross but that he could think of one still grosser—to let her marry him when he had no feeling to offer her but such indifference as marriage deepens to disgust, or such disgust as it tones down into indifference. Would he go on shuddering and wincing as he had shuddered and winced to-day? Passion that might have condoned her failings was out of the question; but would it be possible to keep up the decent appearance ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... his watch; it was eight o'clock. He stood up, wincing as his injured foot touched the floor, and hobbled across the room where he wrenched a rough, split shelf from the wall. This, together with some sticks of firewood, he rolled in a blanket, placing it near the stove. He added more ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... pommelling him cruelly. The conscience-stricken pillar of beautiful muscle—who could have easily killed both his assailants at one blow—not only offered no reciprocatory violence but refused even to defend himself. Unresistingly, wincing with pain, his arms mechanically raised and his head bent, he was battered frightfully to the window by his bed, thence into the corner (upsetting the stool in the pissoir), thence along the wall to the door. As the punishment increased ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... again, "I will listen to you with calmness, as I would remain calm under the probe of a surgeon tenting a festered wound. But when you touch me to the quick, when you prick the very nerve, you cannot expect me to endure without wincing." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 thyself, man. Here are my razors —the best ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... freely enough of Elise Delaunay, David alternately wincing and craving for more. What a clever little devil it was! She was burning herself away with ambition and work; Taranne flattered her a good deal; it was absolutely necessary, otherwise she would be for killing herself two or three times a week. Oh! she might get her ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Yes," Walter spoke, wincing at his father's use of the word. "I wish you would not say 'gambling' father. It was a friendly wager. It is ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... though he 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 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
... silent. She received Amabel's statements steadily yet with a little wincing, as though they had been bullets whistling past her head; they would not pierce, if one did not move; yet an involuntary compression of the lips and flutter of the eyelids revealed a rather rigid self-mastery. Only ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... fired a shot more or less at a venture—"when he becomes aware that, though by law enabled to buy his son off from military service, he has by chicanery been rendered powerless. We will imagine him an enforced spectator, wincing as ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was thronged with men in oilskin clothes and by women with shawls over their heads. Aunt Jane, who always felt responsible for whatever went on in the elements, sat in-doors with one lid closed, wincing at every flash, and watching the universe with the air of a ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... deck, wincing in pain. The wild shot had caught him in the right leg and he was unable to move it. He crawled across the deck, reaching for the gun as Bush came charging ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... its try-out in the one-night circuit. When one sees the delightful humour, fortitude, and high spirits with which the players face their task he gains a new respect for the profession. It is with a sense of shame that the wincing author hears his lines repeated night after night—lines that seem to him to have grown so stale and disreputably stupid, and which the ingenuity of the players contrives to instill with life. With a sense of shame indeed does ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... all passion and brilliance spent on business, dinners here and there, with people who all have their ax to grind, too, and are keyed up to it by rows and rows of cocktails. He drew him without mercy, and he had every wife there either wincing or laughing, with the truth of what he said. He was quite eloquent." She paused, she laughed softly, she turned her eyes upon him. "Then, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... "Yes," he said, wincing with pain, "I have. I set out for Saddleback this morning—I wished to visit the Scales Tarn and get a glimpse of those noonday stars that are said to make its ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... hand, there was something to show for it; all those who passed through his hands when they subsequently fell into the clutches of the Law could endure as many as five-and-twenty strokes from the hardest bludgeon without so much as wincing. They had been case ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... M. Cappele the tailor, and the six hundred and seventy-eight rubles he still 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 ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... sound," said the civilian, wincing. "Les malheureux!" cried he ruefully: for where is the single man can hear the sudden agony of a multitude and not be moved? "Les ingrats! They are going whence they were de trop to where they will be welcome: from starvation to plenty—and they object. They even make dismal noises. One ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Irene, I couldn't let you!" Mary was so taken aback she forgot all about the cut hand, and let Irene bathe it without once wincing. "Oh, miss! I—I couldn't. The master wouldn't ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... rang out into the night. The gunners stood by their horses. Even the sentries, posted outside the rampart to guard against alarm, stood to attention, and Colonel Carter, wincing from the pain in his right arm, walked out in front of where ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Satan, wincing at this uncomplimentary allusion to himself, replied rather warmly: "My dear sir, were it not for the fact that I feel in particularly good spirits this morning, I should resent your ill-timed remarks and leave you to end your miserable existence with ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... same time, reflecting that they are sinful only with the sinful, she knelt thankfully at the feet of the man who had saved her from such danger. Tears threatened. They were a poor atonement for the burning of his younger letters. But not he—she was the sufferer, and she whipped up a sensation of wincing at the flames they fell to, and at their void of existence, committing sentimental idiocies worthy of a lovesick girl, consciously to escape the ominous thought, which her woman's perception had sown in her, that he too chafed at a marriage no marriage: was true in fidelity, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... kitchen. Their soup was ladled out from the immense black pot that hung over the fire, and the noise they made as they fell to it was very grating to the nerves. But the wanderer in the chimney-corner had no business to be there, unless he was prepared to accept all that was customary without wincing. My own dinner commenced with some of this soup, which was like hot dishwater with slices of bread thrown into it. The bit of boiled veal that followed was an improvement, although anything but a captivating dish. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... 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 cap the ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... she summoned courage, and taking Ruth's arm in hers, and holding her hand affectionately, they went out into the broad daylight. As they issued forth, Miss Benson heard Mr Bradshaw's strong bass voice speaking to her brother, and winced, as she knew he would be wincing, under the broad praise, which is impertinence, however little it may be intended ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... allusions. Doubtless her way jars upon you; but, Ned, you are younger than she, and it is easier for you to change. Why not try and accept her method as being a part of her, and try, instead of wincing every time that she touches the sore, to accustom yourself to it. It may be hard at first, but it will be far easier in ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... 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
... 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 ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... 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 the sound of cow-bells, rung lustily and ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs |
