"Flinch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... retreat would be cut off after it; and he naturally shrank from conversing with Margaret, of all people, on this subject. But Hope was equal to any effort which he thought a matter of duty; and he resolved not to flinch from this. He would speak first to Mr Grey; and if Mr Grey did not undertake to answer for Hester's indifference, he would seek an interview with Margaret. If Margaret should encourage his advances on her sister's behalf; the matter was decided. He should have a wife who might be the pride ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... his Lordship, and find him more determined than ever. He says, it is your cause; if you support him, he will never flinch. ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... To love, in time; and I was grateful—would Have given her everything but what was thine, And that alone she coveted. Come, sweet! Fly from this land forlorn:—if miracles Are still in fashion, one might serve us well. Cling to my guiding hand; trust all to me; My soul is so elate I would not flinch From meeting every imp of this dark land— The touch of thy soft ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... fight. The armies also were now mixed one among another, and the dust that was raised so far hindered them from seeing one another, and the noise that was made so far hindered them from hearing one another, that neither side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not flinch, though not so much from their real strength, as from their despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of the regard they had to glory, and to their reputation in war, and because Caesar himself went into the danger before ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... admired, and that pleased her. She had dreamed of all this when a child. She had genius and she had perseverance. Her aim was to be a famous artist, and she did not flinch from any work or sacrifice which would help her to that end. So far all was well, and she reached the goal. As there was nothing to prevent her carrying out secondary plans at the same time, she could be cultivated and charitable without ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... it was vital to Moses to show resolution and courage; but it was here that Moses, on the contrary, flinched; as he usually did flinch when it came to war, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "I don't hesitate!... Comrades who flinch, sneaks who betray, get rid of them, say I!... I condemn him ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... divine speciality of a few transitory mortals to direct the world's events and to dictate laws to their fellow-creatures. What they achieved was for the common good of all. They chose to live in an atmosphere of blood and fire for generation after generation rather than flinch from their struggle with despotism, for they knew that, cruel as the sea, it would swallow them all at last in one common destruction if they faltered or paused. They fought for the liberty of all. And it is for this reason ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a few seconds, moving her tail slowly from side to side, showing her teeth and growling fiercely. She next made a short run forward, making a loud, rumbling noise like thunder. This she did to intimidate me; but finding that I did not flinch an inch, nor seem to heed her hostile demonstrations, she quietly stretched out her massive arms, and lay down on the grass. My Hottentots now coming up, we all three dismounted, and drawing our ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... the tenderest wishes for my welfare, and shower upon me the tokens of their affection; then, having fairly won my confidence, they turn upon me when I least expect it, and stab me cruelly. I am a plain, blunt man—often irritable and unjust, I know—still, I never flinch from danger when I can see it; but, the very nature of my bringing up has rendered me unfit to cope with the wiles and subtleties of my fellow man. You, Mr. Pinkerton, it is said, have the power to see direct to the hearts of men through the shams and artifices by which they seek to ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... face the general foe — A phantom pale and grim. If you flinch at his glare, he'll grow And gather your strength to him; But your power will rise if you laugh in his eyes and away in ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... this storm which she had evoked. But she did not flinch. Her eyes looked straight into ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... werry fine, Mr Murray, sir," said Titely, "and I warn't going to flinch and holloa when one's poor mates wanted everything one could do to keep 'em in good heart; but I did get a good nick made in my shoulder, and the way it's been giving it to me all through this here red-hot march ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... seeds of discontent, the fomenting of hatred among the blacks, bond and free alike, toward the whites. And steadily with that patience which Lowell calls the "passion of great hearts," he pushed deeper and deeper into the slave lump the explosive principles of inalienable human rights. He did not flinch from kindling in the bosoms of the slaves a hostility toward the masters as burning as that which he felt toward them in his own breast. He had, indeed, reached such a pitch of race enmity that, as he was often heard to declare, "he would not like ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... burns without igniting the cartridge, or the charge does not rapidly ignite after pulling the trigger. Figuratively, to hang fire, is to hesitate or flinch. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... said the Bart, laughing, 'he would have had Berlin. But you are senior officer; give us a lead, and we'll see who will be the first to flinch.' ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... avenge, no wrath to bribe, No desperate followers clamouring for spoil; Pardon from me may beautifully fall. Next, I bestow full liberty of speech; I will not sway a dumb indignant earth— Emperor over the unuttered curse. Were I myself the mark, I will not flinch. Yet citizens, if freedom of the tongue I grant, I'd wish less freedom of the feast. Then all informers who lie life away I'll heavily chastise; let no man think With hinted scandal to employ mine ear. Last, over all my earth be perfect trust, That every tribe ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... be thwarted by his acquiescence in generalities. He saw that she had brought him back to a point whence he must elect his course, but he did not flinch at the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Frank and free-hearted after her kind as she was, Virginia Carteret was finding it a new and singular experience to have a man tell her baldly at their first meeting that he had read her inmost thought of him. Yet she would not flinch ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... temptingly near. Tarzan closed his eyes and awaited the end. He knew that he would suffer, for he recalled the faint memories of past burns. He knew that he would suffer and die; but he did not flinch. Death is no great adventure to the jungle bred who walk hand-in-hand with the grim specter by day and lie down at his side by night through all the years of their lives. It is doubtful that the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... all the doorways of these armories; and that, in one corner, a dark one as it ought to be, there is a complete assortment of the old Scottish instruments of torture, not forgetting the very thumbikins under which Cardinal Carstairs did not flinch, and the more terrific iron crown of Wisheart the Martyr, being a sort of barred headpiece, screwed on the victim at the stake, to prevent him from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... the little word fell from his lips like the blow of a steel hammer. His eyes did not flinch; his features did ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... to which he had put his hand. Public criticism and even denunciation, while he resented it as unjust and regarded it as the product of a general misunderstanding, never caused the leader of Standard Oil even momentarily to flinch. He was a man of one idea, and he worked at it day and night, taking no rest or recreation, skillfully turning to his purpose every little advantage that came his way. His associates—men like Flagler, ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... has yet been cut away from beneath the feet of students, although six centuries have passed. We still make sheep-walks of second, third and fourth, and fiftieth hand references to authority; still we are the slaves of habit, still we are found following too frequently the untaught crowd, still we flinch from the righteous and wholesome phrase "I do not know" and acquiesce actively in the opinion of others that we know what we appear ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... Cullison there was no sound in the room but his voice. Luck's eyes burned like live coals. The color faded from the face of his daughter so that her lips were gray as cigar ash. Yet she sat up straight and did not flinch. ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... great North American forests, and Tayoga, softened by long contact with high types of white men, felt pity. The light from the great fire fell directly on Grosvenor's face and showed its pallor. It was evident that he was weary through and through, but he tried to hold himself erect and he did not flinch when the sharp blades flashed close to his face. But Tayoga knew that his feelings had become blunted. Only the trained forest runner could keep steady in the ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... him. It was a necessity for him to live, and that plan of his for avoiding the world did not answer. He, however, and others around him who still maintained the same staunch principles of protection—men like himself who were too true to flinch at the cry of a mob—had their own way of consoling themselves. They were, and felt themselves to be, the only true depositaries left of certain Eleusinian mysteries, of certain deep and wondrous services of worship by which alone the gods could be rightly ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... said with low, measured distinctness, "why don't ye go on? Is thar somethin' that ye'r afeered ter tell me? What hez hapened ter our folks? Don't flinch from tellin' me the wust. I'm allers willin' ter bow ter the will o' the Lord without a murmur. On'y let me know what ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... it were better that she should die; but now Alsi had set out all his plan to her, and he did not mean to flinch from carrying it out. There was no doubt that the Norfolk people would hold that she had disgraced herself by the marriage, and so would refuse to have her as queen. And that was all ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... right to fire. A skilful shot can tell whether he is shooting too high or too low just as he pulls the trigger. The brain, head, and eyes and trigger-finger must all work in harmony or you will never be a good shot. Never flinch as you shoot. This is a very common fault of beginners and it is fatal to becoming ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... was doing deadly work, cutting lanes in every direction. Still on they came; getting slower in their advance as the canister constantly swept away the foremost men. The men in front began to flinch, they were within thirty yards of us,—firing wildly now. One good rush! and their bayonets would have silenced our guns! But they could not face that hail of death any longer; they could not make that rush! They began to give ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... fire-raft against her sides. There the flaming thing lay right up against the portholes, the flames catching the tarred rigging, and running up the masts. Farragut walked his quarter-deck as coolly as though the ship was on parade. "Don't flinch from that fire, boys," he sang out, as the flames rushed in the portholes, and drove the men from their guns. "There's a hotter fire than that for those who don't do their duty. Give that rascally little tug a shot, and don't let her go off with ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... me no nonsense! Half absent themselves Because they WILL not come. The factious fools! Well, be it so. But they shall flinch for it! ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... disguise the real state of affairs—but the voice betrayed much. This was no crude country girl; here was something rather more difficult to handle; one need not be pitiful and condoning; one must not flinch. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... Cloud, son of the old chief rushed up to him and thrust a revolver almost in his face. "It is you and men like you," he shouted, "who have reduced our race to slavery and starvation!" American Horse did not flinch but deliberately reentered the office, followed by Jack still flourishing the pistol. But his timely appearance and eloquence had saved the day. Others of the police force had time to reach the spot, and with a large crowd of friendly Indians had ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... present century, and the Germans have overrun France within the last ten years, not in either case owing to superiority in lifting or boxing, or in literary "culture," but to superiority in the art of fighting— that is, of bringing together large bodies of armed men who will not flinch, and will advance ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... Fergus, striking the boy upon the head with the heavy pistol-butt with his whole force—'take that for acting without orders, and lying to disguise it.' Callum received the blow without appearing to flinch from it, and fell without sign of life. 'Stand still, upon your lives!' said Fergus to the rest of the clan; 'I blow out the brains of the first man who interferes between Mr. Waverley and me.' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... very likely. But still the enquiry demands our earnest attention and we must not flinch. For we should remember, that if a person go on analysing names into words, and enquiring also into the elements out of which the words are formed, and keeps on always repeating this process, he who has to answer him must at last give ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... truth that it seems to me it is very necessary for all women to realise. It is in our foolishness and want of knowledge that we cast our contempt upon men. Women flinch from the facts of life. These women who, regarded by us as "the supreme types of vice," are yet, from this point of view, "the most efficient guardians of our virtue." Must we not then rather see if there is no ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... so intent, that, in a few moments, it attracted the attention of Herr Kreutzer, and the youth, observing that he seemed annoyed and shamed, hurried her away. Instinctively he had felt the old man flinch; instinctively he knew his pride, already, had been sorely hurt by the necessity of "traveling steerage"; that as they gazed at him the handsome, white-haired, emigrant had felt that his dire poverty had made of him ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... will face his assailants till the last? I have seen men of every tribe and people fight in the arena. If conquered, they raise their hand in order to live to conquer another day; but not once, when the thumbs have been turned down, have I seen one flinch from the fatal stroke." ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... that; if my lord get a boy of you, you'll give him me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... country, and want of a place, Is come up, vi et armis, to break the queen's peace. He has vamp'd an old speech, and the court, to their sorrow, Shall hear him harangue against Prior to-morrow. When once he begins, he never will flinch, But repeats the same note a whole day like a Finch.[1] I have heard all the speech repeated by Hoppy,' And, "mistakes to ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... was his great desire to kill That baron, or his hurry made him fail, Or trembling heart, like leaf which flutters still, Made hand and arm together flinch and quail; Or that it was not the Creator's will The church so soon her champion should bewail; The glancing stroke his courser's belly tore, Outstretched on earth, from thence to ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... do whate'er the time demands, Whether with pen or sword, and not to flinch, This is the task that fits heroic hands; So are Truth's boundaries ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... dedicated man. He accepts risks with a laugh, and toil with, perhaps, a grumble, but he does not flinch. Obscure and inglorious perils are his, and hardships that only himself can gauge. Be sure that they are not unrecorded. They shine, and their splendour is hidden, like those lanterns that were ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... heart and living steel, one pulse of hate they feel. Is your clan afraid of the naked blade? Does it flinch from the bitter steel? Perish your dreams of conquest then, your swollen hopes and bold, For empire dwells with the stabbing blade, as it did in ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... George Rose is our Commander, He's as great as Alexander; He'll never flinch, nor stir back an inch, He loves fire ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... Anxiety as to how much he must carry home at night to replace what he had spent in moving Peaches to his room, three extra meals to provide before to-morrow night, something to interest her through the long day: it was a contract, surely! Mickey faced it gravely, but he did not flinch. He did not know how it was to be done, but he did know it must be done. "Get" her they should not. Whatever it had been his mother had feared for him, nameless though the horror was, from that he must save Lily. Mickey had thought it must ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... murder rather than confess the theft of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming interview with Carthew rode his imagination like a nightmare; when the thought crossed his mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the qualm appeared in his face visibly. Yet he would never flinch—necessity stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear; and I used to wonder whether I more admired or more despised this quivering heroism for evil. The image that occurred to me after ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... around her waist and to this was fastened a rope. Very often was this needed during those first three weeks of practice, for, true to her word, Mlle. Zaretti no longer strapped on Calico's back the broad pad to which he had been accustomed. At first the wooden-soles hurt and made him flinch, but in time the skin became toughened and he minded them not at all, although ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... the best part of an active career to the production of Buckeye comedies, and who regarded them as at least one expression of the very highest art, did not even flinch at these cool words. He had once been an actor himself. Taking the blow like a man, he beamed upon his critic. "Exactly, my boy; don't you think I'll ever ask you to come down to clowning. You might work with me for years and I'd never ask you to do a thing that wasn't serious. In fact, that's ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... turn to flinch. A certain famous law-suit in the history of Bartlett & Bangs had brought out some startling testimony, and the subject was one to which reference was never allowed in Madam's presence. At Eleanor's words the whirlwind of her wrath let loose. Her ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... don't apologize for that! I am not a child or weakling, that I should flinch in horror from one of life's dramatic surprises! But, are you sure of what you are saying? ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... secret intelligence from Saint Germains; another upon a report of a rising in the Highlands; get my breakfast and morning draught of sack from old Jacobite ladies, and give them locks of my old wig for the Chevalier's hair; second my friend in his quarrel till he comes to the field, and then flinch from him lest so important a political agent should perish from the way. All this I must do for bread, besides calling ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... with me as though we were marionettes, you and I, with sawdust in our veins, dull, lifeless puppets! Well, it is finished—your vengeance! You may reap the harvest when you will! Publish my letters, prove yourself an injured man. Take a whip in your hand if you like, and I will never flinch. But, for heaven's sake, remember that I am a woman! I am willing to be your slave, nurse you, wait upon you, follow you about! What more can your vengeance need? You have made me despise my husband, you have made me hate my life with him! You have forced ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sick. He was country-born himself, and, being no mere dreamer of dreams, realised that it was as well that country people should not flinch at the less poetic side of their lives, but this callousness struck him as horrible in a young child like Phoebe. Yet as he saw Ishmael wince he regretted the very sensibility in the boy, the lack of which had shocked him in Phoebe. He knew Ishmael had a horror of blood and disagreeable sights, and ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Jim made a gesture that kept some of the men near him from rushing forward. Tom did not appear to notice the demonstration at all. Certainly he did not flinch. ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... death of his father had been a great shock to him, but he did not flinch. In that desperate hour, Kid Wolf knew that he no longer had a boy at his ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... wilderness of dark mountains, which was even more difficult to escape from than the one to the right. But the middle road, which was narrow and straight, went right up the steep and flinty sides of the hill, and was the route that led direct to Mount Zion. Not being the man to flinch from any difficulty, however great, good Christian hesitated not a moment to choose the middle road; and accordingly he fell from running to walking, and from walking to going, and from going to clambering upon ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... swirl on the bay ere long. I hope no harm will come to the lad if he starts to cross. When he wakes he'll be in such a fine Highland temper that he'll never stop to think of danger. Well, Bess, old girl, here we are. Now, Donald Fraser, pluck up heart and play the man. Never flinch because a slip of a lass looks scornful at you out of the ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to get rid of him:" then, holding up the light, what was the surprise of the poor Comedian to espy a dead body of a man—"You can help us to get him away, and by G——you shall, too, it's of no use to flinch now." ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... cemetery, where poor little Joe is laid close to Shelley's heart ("Cor cordium" says the epitaph) and where the mother insisted on going when she and I went out in the carriage together—I am horribly weak about such things—I can't look on the earth-side of death—I flinch from corpses and graves, and never meet a common funeral without a sort of horror. When I look deathwards I look over death, and upwards, or I can't look that way at all. So that it was a struggle with me to sit upright in that carriage in which the poor stricken mother ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... he and Steger were constantly to be met with in courts of law, for he was constantly being reexamined in some petition in bankruptcy. They were heartbreaking days, but he did not flinch. He wanted to stay in Philadelphia and fight the thing to a finish—putting himself where he had been before the fire; rehabilitating himself in the eyes of the public. He felt that he could do it, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... ask our hearts if they will not flinch and tremble?" said Peter Mayer, almost contemptuously. "When the enemy returned to the Tyrol last May, he burned down eight houses which belonged to me, and for some time I did not know but that ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... whom vanity brings more of pain than of pleasure; there are also those whom it oftener keeps in the background, than thrusts forward. The same man who to-day volunteers for that which he is not called upon to do, may to-morrow flinch from his obvious duty from one and the same cause,—vanity, or regard to the appearance he is to make, for its own sake, and perhaps that vanity which shrinks is a more subtle and far-sighted, a more ethereal, a more profound vanity than that which ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... for lancing their gums, while the throw-stick is used for knocking out a tooth. Sometimes, in addition to this crude dentistry, the youth is required to submit to cruel gashes cut upon his back and shoulders, and should he flinch or utter any cry of pain he is always thereafter classed with women. Haygarth writes of a semi-domesticated Australian who said one day, with a look of importance, that he must go away for a few days, as he had grown to man's estate, and it was high time he had his teeth knocked out. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... resolute. "Yes, I CAN," she answered. "It is a work of necessity; and in works of necessity a woman, I think, should flinch at nothing. Have I not seen already every varied aspect of death at Nathaniel's?" And in she went, undaunted, to that chamber of ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... sort of little beggar then, Bunny; you didn't talk and you didn't flinch. You asked no questions and you told no tales. I wonder if you're like ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... lately been driven?—Or dost thou presume that I shall return without effecting my object because of thy opposition?—Know that I am a chief and a warrior, tried in many a hard battle, and never known to flinch. I have never been defeated by the enemies of my nation, and I will not be defeated by thee." So saying, he made a vigorous effort, and succeeded in forcing a passage through the flame. In this exertion ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... and put his head out cautiously. Suddenly he drew it back and said in Latin, 'Here is a spy.' He did not flinch, but advanced into the corridor, keeping his back to the servitor whom already Master Viridus had sent to keep her door. Gardiner fumbled in his robes and pulled out his missal. He turned the pages over, and, speaking in a feigned and squeaky voice, once more indicated to her prayers against ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... "Treason! treason!" The whole assembly was in an uproar, shouting with the Speaker, "Treason! treason!" Not only the royalists, but others who were thoroughly alarmed by the orator's audacious words, joined in the cry. But never for a moment did Henry flinch. Fixing his eye upon the Speaker, and throwing his arm forward from his dilating form, as though to hurl the words with the power of a thunderbolt, he added in a tone none but he himself could command, "May profit by their example." Then, with a defiant look ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... buffaloes were in passing Bob never knew, for he took no note of time. It was probably not more than two or three minutes, but during that brief period he passed through an ordeal that he never could think of afterward without feeling the cold chills creep all over him. But he did not flinch, and neither did his companions. When the last of the buffaloes passed to the right and left of them, and the lieutenant jumped up and stretched his arms and legs as if to assure himself that he had not been stepped on anywhere, he found that not ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... for a second by the threatening weights in the boy's hand. But pride urged the man on. He stepped up quickly, and planted a smarting blow on Jimmy's leg. It was well for the grocer that he ducked his head; for when the paddle struck, the boy did not flinch, but let drive one weight after another, and cried before each crash of glass that the flying irons made inside the store, "Yes, you will!" ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... not flinch; he said nothing; she looked intently into the two ratty eyes fastened on her over the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... bound, the shield Of Hector pierc'd; right through the weapon pass'd; Arrested with rude shock the warrior's course, And graz'd his neck, that spouted forth the blood. Yet did not Hector of the glancing helm Flinch from the contest: stooping to the ground, With his broad hand a pond'rous stone he seiz'd, That lay upon the plain, dark, jagg'd, and huge, And hurl'd against the sev'n-fold shield, and struck Full on the central boss; loud rang the brass: Then Ajax ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... be some terrible avenger, out of the mystery beyond life, placed to beset him and finish him finally on this road that he was convinced was surely the death-road? The dog was not real. It could not be real. The dog did not live that could take a full-arm whip-slash without wince or flinch. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... sight of the third figure standing a little behind the Fentons and stopped abruptly. His eyes seemed to flinch for a moment. Then he made a quick ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... she had rejected both. But the uncertainty was terrible. To what lengths might not passion, unrequited passion, defeated passion, outraged passion, lead a man like Hugh Ritson? Without pity, without remorse, with a will that was relentless and a heart that never knew truth, he was a man to flinch at no extremity. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... if it were his choice, he could not think on it without terror, to enter again into and venture upon that conflict with a body of sin and death; yet if he were again to go and preach in the field, he durst not vary in the least nor flinch one hair-breadth from the testimony, but would look on himself as obliged to use the same freedom and faithfulness as he had done before." And in a letter on Feb. 6. he desired that the persons, whose names were decyphered, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... here,' she said, with a slight motion of her hand before her brow, which did not for a moment flinch from its immovable and otherwise expressionless gaze, 'as I know there are unusual feelings here,' raising the hand she pressed upon her bosom, and heavily returning it, 'consider that there is no common ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... really. I've never forgotten your generous act that day when someone so brutally killed my dog Mike, how you tried to save him. I didn't know you then, but that made no difference to you. And now when you find an opportunity to help save a man's life, you never flinch." ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... nothing to say; at the moment I might not have been able to say it if I had. There is something in the helpless courage of women that makes me feel soft. We can work and fight; they sit and wait. Yet they do not flinch. Now I know that if I had to sit and think about the thing I should ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... thanked him for the friendly warning which his affection had impelled him to utter; but, he continued, the greater the danger, the greater the honor; and even if the danger were real, Frenchmen would never flinch from it. But were not the Illinois jealous? Had they not been deluded by lies? "We were not asleep, my brother, when Monso came to tell you, under cover of night, that we were spies of the Iroquois. The presents he gave you, that you might believe his falsehoods, are ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... you see: danger! The uninterrupted impression of danger! Oh, to breathe it like the air one breathes, to feel it around one, blowing, roaring, lying in wait, approaching!... And, in the midst of the storm, to remain calm ... not to flinch!... If you do, you are lost.... There is only one sensation to equal it, that of the chauffeur driving his car. But that drive lasts for a morning, whereas mine lasts ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... assure you that this is an eternal farewell. Yet I flinch not from the duties which tie me ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... come short, perspiration was streaming, and an unlucky blow on the nose set another stream flowing, while, all at once, a dab in the eye made the optic flinch, close its lid from intense pain, and refuse to open again, so that one-eyed like a regular old Cyclops, and panting like the same gentleman from the exertions of using his hammer— two in this case, ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... danced elfishly, and trippingly—for very joy it made one laugh. The tear rolled down Joyce's face, as the smile replaced it, and dropped upon the thin cheek of the baby. He did not flinch, and the staring eyes did not falter, but something drew the mother's attention. As the final tripping notes died away, she ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... which he swung and cracked the whip was more threatening than any words. Perhaps she grew a shade paler, perhaps her hands were tightly clasped in order that they might not tremble; but she did not flinch from the encounter. She moved a step nearer, fixed her gaze upon his flashing eyes, and said, in a low, ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... to avoid the girl's direct gaze, nor did he flinch as the accusation fell from her lips. Never was he more alert, never more gently disposed towards this half-demented creature than at that moment. He recognized the hand that had been at work, and he laid no blame upon her. His feelings were of sorrow—sorrow for the woman he loved, and ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... It was not, however, from fear—Simon of Orrain never suffered from the poltroon fever; he but drew back to strike hard, and to sell his life dearly. They ringed him in—his own men who had turned against him—and he stood with his back to the gate. He did not flinch, and meant to fight, hopeless as it was, for all around him were white, shining swords, that needed but a word from Aramon to be red with his blood. But the new captain ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... not flinch; if he had not foreseen the amount he expected the demand, and he continued gazing ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... that came clearly. She shrank for a moment—the thought of facing life single-handed, poor and alone in that great, terrible, pitiless city, was overwhelming. But she did not flinch from her resolve; her mind was made up. Come woe, come weal, she ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Then the Mogul said he would brand the candidate on the bare back with the initial letters of our order, 'G.T.,' that all might read how a brand had been snatched from the burning. You'd a dide to see Pa flinch when I pulled up his shirt, and ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... flinch, even in this present crisis. If Reed was in this final, consummating agony, and needed her, it was for ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... understand. I saw him, too; but he'll be all right by-and-by. It's like a big battle, but he'll not flinch; father's made of the stuff that soldiers have in them. He'll be all ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... but one business more with life. It is to arraign the fair and traiterous author of all my misfortunes. Start not at the black catalogue. Flinch not from the detail of infernal mischief. The mind that knows how to perpetrate an action, should know how to hear the story of it repeated, and to answer it ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... the corporal sneered, "here's where we separate the men from the boys. Don't let the noise shake you too bad and if it kicks you in the shoulder a little, don't flinch. Remember what you learned in dry fire practice—hold 'em and squeeze 'em off. This is just familiarization fire, so don't worry if you don't hit ...
— Sonny • Rick Raphael
... was in the White House the Typical American was gay, robustious, full of the joy of living, an expansive spirit from the frontier, a picaresque twentieth century middle class Cavalier. He hit the line hard and did not flinch. And his laugh ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... a sup, But had it been a gallon pot, By Jove I'd tossed it up. And ever since that happy time, Good wine has been my cheer, Now nothing puts me in a swoon But water or small beer. Then let us tope about, my lads, And never flinch nor fly, But fill our skins brimfull of wine, And ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... in them before. Raiders were one thing, Rojas was another; Camino del Diablo still another; but that vast and desolate and unwatered waste of cactus and lava, the Sonora Desert, might appall the stoutest heart. Gale felt his own sink—felt himself flinch. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... throw'd in the yaller boy—and he's wuth a hun'red more'n the gal, ony day. His mother took on ter kill, 'cause the Gin'ral'd sort o' promised him ter har, and she'd been a savin' up ter buy him. But the Gin'ral's a honerubble man, and he didn't flinch a hair—not a hair. Thet's the sort ter deal with, I say. I stuck fur the little gal, though—'cause, ye see, I'd takin' a likin' ter har myself—she's the pootiest little thing ye ever seed, she is; but the Gin'ral he said 'twarn't no use, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sat silent, unwilling to probe the wound, and yet too brave to flinch from what she felt to ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... own sound waves, and bombed me. All that actually happened was that a band of little parrakeets flew down and alighted nearby. When I discovered this, it seemed a disconcerting anti-climax, just as one can make the bravest man who has been under rifle-fire flinch by spinning a match swiftly past ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... angry with himself that he was not more indifferent to the whizzing of the balls; but the sensation of discomfort under fire is beyond the control of the will, and it is no unusual thing to see a young soldier who, later in the day, may display an almost reckless courage, yet at first flinch whenever balls hiss close by him, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary. Tom was able, however, to control any outward manifestation of his feelings, and took his place a few paces behind General Paget, who was standing with one of his officers by his side, watching the force which, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... ordinary clothes would hardly hurt a fly, Hold to the rigour of the law when I put on gown and wig, As if for mere humanity I didn't care a fig. For once I'm seated on the bench I do not shrink or flinch From the reddest laws of Draco, or the ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... a great vaulted chamber, brightly lit by many torches. At the farther end roared a great fire. In front of it three naked men were chained to posts in such a way that flinch as they might they could never get beyond the range of its scorching heat. Yet they were so far from it that no actual burn would be inflicted if they could but keep turning and shifting so as continually ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Why dost thou tarry? Of time why such a loss? Dost fear the sign I carry? 'Tis but a simple cross. Thou wilt not strike? Then hear me: Come! strike in any hour, My heart shall never fear thee Nor flinch before thy power. I'll meet thee — time's dread lictor — And my wasted lips shall sing: 'Dread death! I am the victor! Strong death! ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... without color in her voice, or feeling or emotion. She did not, I am sure, flinch mentally as she looked at the Germans. Certainly she did not flinch visibly. She was ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Angel Gabriel take note of such lies by women; and which side of the account does he put them on?) 'Father says a fact is a hard nut to crack. You're not to take any notice of this attack on me. You're not to flinch from the fight for my sake or deflect a hair's breadth on my account. You know what you said. Things have gone so far that crime is invading decent lives. Well, it has invaded yours and mine; and you're not to ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... yesterday. We were at our scant breakfast, I as blue as was ever even twenty-five, she brave and confident. And hers was no mere pretense to reassure me, no cheerless optimism of ignorance, but the through-and-through courage and strength of those who flinch for no bogey that life or death can conjure. Her tone lifted me; I glanced at her, and what shone from her eyes set me on my feet, face to the foe. The table-cloth was darned in many places, but so skilfully that you could have looked closely without detecting it. Not a lump of sugar, ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... left his lips before he would have given much to have recalled them. He saw her start, flinch back as though she had been struck, and a grey pallor spread itself over her face, almost to the lips. She looked at him fixedly for several moments ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... readily enough, and the blue eyes did not flinch, but the smile was a trifle fixed ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... touched by this mute sorrow; but he held too tenaciously to his projects, above all to this one, to change the program which he had laid out in advance. He did not therefore allow her any hope that he would flinch; only he represented his action as ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... earnestly. They knew that every word Ned had told was true, and they felt that the trouble between Texas and Mexico had now come to a head. It must be war. They were fully aware of the fearful odds, but they did not believe the Texans would flinch. Three or four rode a long distance around the camp and scouted carefully. But, as they had expected, they saw no sign of the Lipans, who undoubtedly were still fleeing southward, carrying in their hearts a healthy fear of the ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Cavalier seul operation, does HE flinch? No: he puts on his most vainqueur look, he sticks his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and advances, retreats, pirouettes, and otherwise gambadoes, as though to say, "Regarde moi, O monde! Venez, O femmes, ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mrs. Grubb. 'Mr. Grubb was dreadfully opposed to my doing it, but every penny of it went to freeing our religious society from debt. It was a case of the greatest good of the greatest number, and I didn't flinch. I thought it was a good deal more important that the Army of Present Perfection should have a roof over its head than that Lisa Bennett should be fed and clothed; that is, if ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and without feeling. If we came through, the log would read better thus; if not, and by some strange chance it came to human eyes, then the Universe would know at least that the Ertak's officers did not flinch from even ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... crisis of life there comes some twist in affairs which seems to turn the screws harder or sets them to making one flinch in a new and unexpected place. In Katrine's case it was a turn which made life so unbearable that there were times when she would be forced to bite her lips and set her teeth to keep back a moan, while for hours ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... rite by day he would compromise not only his own safety but that of others. In all that concerned him personally, such as consoling the dying or caring for the wounded, he acted quite openly, and no danger that he encountered on his way ever caused him to flinch from ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... she wouldn't flinch. "You weren't asked till after he had made sure I'd come. We've become, you and I," she smiled, "one of the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... I. W. W. wants unity. But we will have no unity with any who are not willing to accept the proletarian conception of Socialism. We will have no unity with any who do not belong to our class. And we will have no unity with any who flinch at ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... These mute memorials of home and its loved ones have proved the talisman of many a tempted heart, and the solace of thousands of suffering, weary veterans. I had much to do, and prepared to leave. I said, 'Brave men, farewell! When I go home, I'll tell them that men that never flinch before a foe, sing hymns of praise in the rifle-pits of Vicksburg. I'll tell them that eyes that never weep for their own suffering, overflow at the name of home and the sight of the pictures of their wives and children. They'll feel more than ever ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... reality. Does reality hurt you? Are you living in a shadow-world, that you should flinch from the hard touch of truth? I say it again. I ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... news, while a severe disappointment, had not caused her to flinch, for she had, in a measure, anticipated it and with the calmness of desperation already commenced giving thought to the problem of her future existence. In the end she had comforted herself with the ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... animal had never been obliged to endure before. He gave all that he had of might and courage. He crept forward inch by inch, feeling his way, bracing against the current, nose close to the water. In animals, just the same as in men, there are those that flinch and those that stand straight, the courageous and the cowardly, the steadfast and the false,—and Mulvaney was of the true breed. Besides, perhaps some of his rider's strength went into his thews and sustained him. Slowly the water dropped lower. ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... who had never been brought up to much domesticity. Far beyond the valley they had to go to earn money at hop-tying, haymaking, harvesting, potato-picking, swede-trimming, and at such work they came immediately, just as the men did, under conditions which made it a vice to flinch. As a rule they would leave work in the afternoon in time to get home and cook a meal in readiness for their husbands later, and at that hour one saw them on the roads trudging along, under the burden of coats, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... the Southern masses, flushed by victory everywhere else, pressed harder. Terrible reports of defeat and destruction came to him continually, but he did not flinch. He turned the same calm face to everything, and said to the generals that whatever happened they would keep their own ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... wheel? The rack? The thumbscrew? Sink me, ye shall see how an Englishman can die! Even from these I flinch not." ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... standing in life. The heart that, for the sake of leal faith and love, could despise wealth and its concomitants, and brave the risk of embracing comparative poverty, even at its best estate, was not one likely overmuch to fear that poverty when it appeared, nor flinch with an altered tone from the position which it had adopted, when it actually came. This, much rather, fell to my part. It preyed upon my mind too deeply not to prove injurious in its effects; and it did this all the more, that the voice of love, true to its own law, had the words of hope ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... all? and you make so much fuss over it! I didn't flinch just now, when you nearly crushed my ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... I gritted and started for him. The gun barrel rammed me in the kidney, harder than it had in the alley. They'd smuggled in some protection. I really slammed on the brakes, halfway across the desk. Lefty hadn't bothered to flinch, but sat there with his legs crossed, ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... said a tall shoemaker, who had stepped in to hear part of the sermon, with bunches of slippers hanging over his shoulders. "It seems to me, friend, that you are about as wise as a calf with water on its brain. The Frate will flinch from nothing: he'll say nothing beforehand, perhaps, but when the moment comes he'll walk through the fire without asking any grey-frock to keep him company. But I would give a shoestring to know what this Latin ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Hal did not flinch. He leaped upon the little brown man, getting a clinch that held the rascal powerless. Then Noll coolly took away the knife, striking the blade into the tree trunk and ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... suggested by Swift's momentary "handling" of it in A Tale of a Tub.[4] The satirical method is broad and easy and scarcely requires comment. This is the attack which was supposed by Addison's editor Henry Morley (Spectator, 1883, I, 318) to have caused Addison to "flinch" a little in his revision of the ballad essays. It is scarcely apparent that he did so. The last paragraph of the third essay, on the Children in the Wood, is a retort to some other and even prompter unfriendly critics—"little conceited Wits of the Age," with their ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe |
