"Wince" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinned with the ooze of my skin, I fall on the weeds and stones, The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, Taunt ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... me; every word I speak to him—still more every word to her—galls him. But he controlled himself when I made him tell me the story—I had no reason to complain—though every now and then I could see him wince under the knowledge I must needs show of the persons and places concerned—a knowledge I could only have got from her. And she stood by meanwhile like a statue. Not a word, not a look, so far, though she had been forced to touch my hand. But my instinct saved me. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sentenced without reprieve were the greatest poet and the most original thinker of the time. A journal which has earned something of the prestige that attached to the youthful Edinburgh takes a not very different view of its own functions. "An author may wince under criticism," say the writers of the Saturday Review; "but is the master to leave off flogging because the pupil roars?" Here, too, the notion of the relative position of author and critic is perfectly natural. Young gentlemen, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... that beset yours—doubt, distrust, despondency. I have health, mental and physical activity, and a "mounting spirit" of indomitable enjoyment that buoyantly protects me from sufferings under which others wince and writhe; nevertheless, I have the sufferings proper to my individuality, and I needs must suffer, if it were only that I may be said to live, in the fit and proper sense of the term. Our lots are just; ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and he too wished to create, if not a King of Rome, a federation of small States ruled by princes of his own blood. The public rejoicings at Florence, Parma, Modena, and Bologna, and the ardent expression of the populace at such centres for union with Sardinia, made the Emperor wince, and showed him that it was impossible, even with French bayonets, to crush the aspirations of a nation. Napoleon met Francis Joseph at Villafranca, and the preliminaries of peace were arranged on July 11 ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... too in drops of wounded manhood, since, To mock alike thine art and indignation, Laughed at the palace-window the new prince,— ("Aha! this genius needs for exaltation, When all's said and however the proud may wince, A little marble from our princely mines!") I do believe that hour thou laughedst too For the whole sad world and for thy Florentines, After those few tears, which were only few! That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew,— The head, erect ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... thrust his finger consciously into a raw wound. He saw Justin wince, and with pitiless cunning he continued to prod that tender place until he had aggravated the smart of it into a ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... the ladies," he exclaimed, as he drew out a neatly ironed handkerchief and shook it free from its folds, "and no wonder—no wonder! We'll be having an epidemic of heart trouble next." Then, as he saw the doctor wince beneath his jest, his kindly heart reproached him, and he gravely turned to politics and ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... their hands in the boiling pot; They swallow the bison meat steaming hot, Not a wince on their stoical faces bold. For the meat and the water, they say, are cold, And great is Heyka and wonderful wise; He floats on the flood and he walks in the skies, And ever appears in a strange disguise; But he loves the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... that. For God's sake don't let them see you've lost your nerve this way." He did not even wince at the ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a bit absent-mindedly. "No, I don't think it's nice at all to call Miss Flora a 'Vicious Circe.'" It was Flame's turn now to wince back a little. "I—I hate people who hate dogs!" she cried out ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... most happy (with a half-frown and a wince) to play Panurge to your lordship's Pantagruel, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... hesitated for a word, and then burst out, "After all the dirt and beastliness! Your Lordship ought never to have gone in the ranks, begging your pardon; you weren't fitted for it. You ought to have gone as a General. Then you wouldn't have come home with that poor leg and——" She saw him wince and changed the subject. "But about doing things without orders, I knew that if Braithwaite—if Braithwaite——" Her voice sagged and her eyes misted over. At last Tabs saw how she looked in her off-duty moments, when ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... investments that Josiah had ever owned had been sold for the greater glory of Spencer & Son—to buy in other firms and patents—to increase the factory by the river. As her father had once confided to Mary this had taken money—"a dreadful lot of money"—she remembered the wince with which he had spoken—and a safe deposit box which was nearly empty bore evidence to the truth of what he ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... over it, prophesying that no good could come of it. Miss Garscube's will had never been crossed in her life, and she was a "clever" woman: Lord Arthur would not submit to her domineering ways, and she would wince under and be ashamed of his want of intellect. All this was foretold and thoroughly believed by people having the most perfect confidence in their own judgment, so that Lord Arthur and his wife ought to have been, in the very nature ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... the horses to something. She heard him come to the end of the seat, knew that he was reaching up his arms to help her down. But when she swung her weight from the seat she felt him wince. ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... his hand and locked Lee's in a grip that made the sore fingers wince. Then, swinging upon the heel of his boot, he went back to collect a hundred dollars from Melvin and help Bayne Trevors ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... declamation, but dramatic dialogue and interrogation, by-hints, and unexpected hits at one and the other most commonplace soldier's failing.... And yet each pithy rebuke was put in a universal, comprehensive form, which made Raphael himself wince—which might, he thought, have made any man, or woman either, wince in like manner. Well, whether or not Augustine knew truths for all men, he at least knew sins for all men, and for himself as well as his hearers. There was no denying that. He was ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... sore eyes!" said Luke Watson, as he gave our hero's hand a grasp that made him wince. "My gracious, it seems to me that I haven't seen you in a year ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... think it was? You thought it was the police, I suppose?" said Pinto with heavy jocularity, and to his amazement he saw the little man wince. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... dominated him. Now and then the thought of Mary Thorne came to torture him. Vividly he pictured the scene at the ranch-house which Mrs. Archer had described, imagining the girl's fear and horror and despair, then and afterward, with a realism which made him wince. But always his mind flashed back to the man who was to blame for it all, and with savage curses he pledged himself to ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... perhaps now hasten to improve its waning opportunity. Something at least had been gained: in the occupation of his mind in this attempt at self-defense he was less sensible of the pain in his head and had ceased to wince. But he was still dreadfully frightened and his teeth rattled ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Billy Jones's wife to come over for a week and work for her. I'm going to stay all night with Mrs. Jones and bring her back in the morning. She'll never leave Billy unless she's fetched. So I really think you needn't worry, Mr. Macartney," she paused, and I thought I saw him wince. "I'm not going to be a nuisance either to you or Mr. Stretton," and before he had a chance to answer she started up the horses. I had just time to take a flying jump and land in the wagon beside her ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... was a man well over forty, but to-day his eyes glowed with that concentrated fire which burns in the heart at twenty, and he shook de Marmont by the hand with a vigour which made the younger man wince with the pain ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Eisenstein. "I wish I could do something to help that kid. He just can't stand the discipline.... You ought to see him wince when the red-haired sergeant over there yells at him.... The kid ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... us on the gall: Scratch us on the sore place. Compare, "Let the galled jade wince." Hamlet ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... instant the lad had kicked out with the clumsy wooden shoes he wore, and the soldier fell back half stunned into the sea. The rest of the fellows instantly raised their guns, but George did not wince; he perceived what they in their wild scamper after him had not noticed, that they had dragged their muskets through the water, and for the time had rendered the weapons useless. The boy laughed in spite of his predicament, as he hastily ran up the ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... in its haughty reserve, although I could not say much for her courtesy. As he released her hand she let it drop quietly to her side and stood still, gazing at him with a quiet, disdainful look that would have made almost any other man wince. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... journalist (this last an admirable study) do in varying degrees contrive to avoid the deadly infection. This tract needed writing. I have a feeling that it could be better done and by ROSE MACAULAY. But it makes excellent reading as it is.... The pachyderm will wince, shake himself ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... shoulder with a strength which made him wince and pointed a skinny finger at the boat. The fate of the two seamen did not trouble him greatly. Those who lived by violence should rightly expect to die by it. The sea was their gaming table and it was their ill luck if the dice were cogged. Just then Bill ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Indian boy prepared for the news? Or did he not care? Was he simply clay that served without feeling? The thought made Jack wince. He paused, and the dark eyes, as in a ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Daisy stood like a rock. Her mouth never gave way; not even when Dolce, conceiving that all this cheering called upon him to do something, rose up and looking right into Daisy's face wagged his tail in the blandest manner of congratulation. Daisy did not wince; and an energetic "Down, Dolce, down!"—brought the St. Bernard to his position again, in the very meekness of strength; and then the people clapped for Daisy and the dog together. At ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... animosity that had been sown in his heart against Austin during the past summer was now bearing fruit, and he took a sort of pleasure in annoying the boy. He saw that Austin was sensitive about being dependent and he enjoyed seeing him wince. At Harry's alarm he only grunted a word of disapproval and went on with his work. He believed Austin was only trying to bluff him. He did not think the boy could be driven away ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... surprise, the dog did not wince under the blow. Nor for that matter did he yelp or cry out from the pain. Nor did he bark or growl or snarl. He closed in as though he had not received the blow, and as though the whip was not brandished above him. As Michael leaped for ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Ona's scream, smiting him like a blow in the face, making him wince and turn white. Her voice died away into a wail—then he heard her sobbing again, "My God—let me die, let me die!" And Marija hung her arms about him, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... together in those long winter nights when she lay in that cold room, wrapped in Poe's only coat, he, with one hand holding hers, and with the other dashing off some of the most perfect masterpieces of English prose. And when he would wince and turn white at her coughing, she would always whisper: "Work on, my poet, and when you have finished read it to me. I am happy when I listen." O, the devotion of women and the madness of art! They are the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... and impossible as many of them were, made him wince, not knowing indeed how cunning was the invention behind them; and many times when she was more maddening than usual, Herrick schooled himself to patience by reminding himself of the drastic punishments which had apparently been meted ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... her hand for a minute in such a close grasp that it hurt her, but she did not wince. Ah! if she might just have this pleasantly satisfying relation with the man whose presence in her life meant warmth and light and even happiness on the hard road of everyday routine, and then have somehow besides the contentment which comes of accomplishment along a line of chosen ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... without hesitation, contest, or expostulation—proceed with even exaggerated care to smoothe every difficulty, to reduce it to the level of their understandings, return it to them thus modified, and lay on the lash of sarcasm with unsparing hand. They would feel the sting, perhaps wince a little under it; but they bore no malice against this sort of attack, provided the sneer was not sour, but hearty, and that it held well up to them, in a clear, light, and bold type, so that she who ran might read, their incapacity, ignorance, and sloth. They would riot for three additional ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... his distance carefully, shifting repeatedly a matter of inches to make sure that no stroke would be wasted. Then he whirled the blacksnake over his head. They could see Borgson wince as the lash sang above him, and the muscles of his bare back flexed and stood up in knots that glistened under the sunlight. But the stroke did not fall. Kamasura had learned the lesson of creating suspense from the very man he was now about ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... friends, Miss Lawrence and Miss Gifford, is it not?" He smiled, extending his big hand to each of us in turn, and giving our hands a grip the cordiality of which made us wince. "It is a pleasure. But you will excuse this young man, is it not?" He lowered the baby to his breast as he spoke, while his wife fell upon our necks in hospitable greeting. "He has no manners, this young man," added the father, sadly, when Katrina had thus expressed her rapture in our arrival. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... mighty glad to see him here," said Fred, as he accepted the brown and calloused hand which the man, who had been kidnapped by orders of the combine, thrust out toward him, to wince under the ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... with her blistered hand took hold of the boot-heel below the spur. It cost her exquisite pain, but she did not wince; and her head being bent, no one perceived the ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... strictures of English writers, and receive their criticisms with so much suspicion, Mr. Mackay is unable fully to determine. He is forced to believe that it is only their anxiety "to stand well in English opinion which causes them to wince"; particularly as "French and Germans may condemn, and nobody cares what they say." This is but a part of the truth. Unquestionably, Americans do, as Mr. Mackay says, "attach undue importance to what English ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... grew on barren ground, In haste he drew his weapon out, And having cropp'd them from the root, He clapp'd them underneath the tail Of steed, with pricks as sharp as nail. 845 The angry beast did straight resent The wrong done to his fundament; Began to kick, and fling, and wince, As if h' had been beside his sense, Striving to disengage from thistle, 850 That gall'd him sorely under his tail: Instead of which, he threw the pack Of Squire and baggage from his back; And blund'ring still with smarting rump, He gave the Knight's steed such a thump 855 As made him reel. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... logic plain as a, b, c. Now, Hector Stuart, you're a Scottish prince, If right you fathom your descent—that fall From grace; and since you have no peers, and since You have no kind of nobleness at all, 'Twere better to sing little, lest you wince When made by heartless critics to sing small. And yet, my liege, I bid you not despair— Ambition conquers but a realm at once: For European bays arrange your hair— Two continents, in time, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... about abusing me, and of course our dear mutual friends tell me. Abuse away, mon bon! You were so kind to me when I wanted kindness, that you may take the change out of that gold now, and say I am a cannibal and negro, if you will. Ha, Baggs! Dost thou wince as thou readest this line? Does guilty conscience throbbing at thy breast tell thee of whom the fable is narrated? Puff out thy wrath, and, when it has ceased to blow, my Baggs shall be to me as the Baggs of old—the generous, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... We could not suppose that these predispositions in the martial steed were at all aggravated by the unskilful jockeyship to which he was subjected, but the sensitive quadruped did rebel a little in the stable, and wince a little in the field! Perhaps the poor animal was something in the state of the horse that carried Mr. Wordsworth's "Idiot Boy," who, in his sage contemplations, "wondered"—"What he had got upon his back!" This rubbing down his horse was ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... wince was purely involuntary. He had been trying latterly to train up to the degree of mental fitness which would enable him to think calmly of Ardea as another man's wife. The effort commended itself as a part of the new broadening process, but ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... and Melinda turned sharply upon him, with a look in her black eyes which made him wince as he replied: "Family interference—must have money, you know! But, zounds! don't I pity her!—tied ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... me that money was the greatest power on earth? So, too, he had said to my face that a lady could not be made, but was born. I was irrational, and I was conscious of being irrational; but I did not care. I would make him wince at least, and feel for a time the tortures of a love he did not dare to express. Ah! but such a love was not worthy of the name, and it was I who was become the fitting subject for the finger of derision, because I had put my faith ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... eyes stood well out of his head; he drew himself up with a superb air—a little spoiled by a wince as his left boot deftly reminded him that he was wearing it, and cried, "Ha! You laugh! You laugh at Sigismond de Puy-de-Dome! Mon Dieu! You shall learn!" And with a sudden spring he ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... once more to eager forecasts and combinations. As to individuals—she recalled Tressady's blunt warning with a smile and a wince. But it did not prevent her from falling into a reverie of which he, or someone like him, was the centre. Types, incidents, scenes, rose before her—if they could only be pressed upon, burnt into such a mind, as they had been burnt into her mind and Maxwell's! That was ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... any right to hunt here. The Great Spirit has laws. He has told us these laws. They teach us to love our friends, and to hate our enemies. You don't believe this, Bourdon?" observing the bee-hunter to wince a little, as if ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... described in the centre. On a sudden the latter stopped short, as though petrified where he stood. His countenance, naturally sallow, became pale as ashes, and, as if to save himself from falling, he clutched the arm of one of his companions with a force that made him wince again, while he gazed with distended eyeballs on a man who had halted within half-a-dozen paces of the Spaniards. The person whose aspect produced this Medusa-like effect upon the Carlist was a man about thirty years of age, plainly but elegantly dressed, and of a prepossessing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Walpole's methods. Caleb D'Anvers was a mere name for a Grub Street hack who was supposed to be the writer. But Walpole had no difficulty in recognizing the hand of Bolingbroke, and his reply to the first number of the Occasional Writer made Bolingbroke wince. [T. S.] ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... last drop in the cup of gall. I once was near him, when his bailiff brought A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince As from a venomous thing: he thought himself A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know That these ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... hearers. He never hesitated to tell his hearers that they were poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. Thackeray has ridiculed the idea of a man with a long rent-roll, and a comfortable cushioned pew, believing himself to be a miserable sinner; but, he must have been obtuse indeed who would not wince under this rough and bizarre, but terribly earnest and fervid preacher. For a long period he gave a series of evening lectures which were crowded to suffocation, and as the fame of him went abroad throughout all the city, he was often the cynosure of eyes that were neither friendly nor ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... had suffered, forgotten the purpose to humble and to punish. Everything was forgotten and silenced by the compelling voice of his blood, which cried out that he loved her. He stooped to her and caught her wrists in a grip that made her wince. ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... with as much dignity as the situation permitted. Few men can feel themselves the target of the scorn of three honest people and not wince, and Justin, whatever his weaknesses, did not ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... doth not wince, Who bears the ensigns of his prince, Through triumphs, in his galled palm, Or turn aside to look for balm? Nay, for the glory thrice outweighs The petty ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... have got so involved just now, as to make it necessary for me either to work or have a rich wife. Such eyes too, as Mary's got! Black and fiery one minute, blue and soft the next. Well, any way I'll have a good time flirting with her, just for the sake of seeing Ella wince and whimper, if nothing more. Bah! What a simpleton she is, compared with Mary. I wonder how much Mrs. Campbell is worth, and if ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... are much nearer than we imagine-the phrase 'Anti-Reformer' will serve as well as that of 'Malignant,' and be as valid a plea as the former title for harassing and plundering all those who venture to wince under the crowning ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... recklessly. "Do not stand there and call yourself a dishonored man!" she exclaimed with increasing force. "You are not dishonored. Do not call Mr. Travers your 'tool.' He is not your tool, and never has been. You are his tool,—his and mine!" She paused, catching her breath as she saw him wince. Then she went on: "Don't burden yourself with the consciences of us all, for we have not got any; and what has been done we have done knowingly and wilfully. Do you remember that evening when you found me in the temple? You thought it was—chance—or—or the hand of ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... child said; yet I saw her wince whenever the captain raised that hoarse voice of his in more and more blasphemous exhortation; and I began to fear with Ready that the ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... his 'mater.' That was the sort of school; and his mother is rather proud of the phrase, though it sometimes makes his father wince. ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... he was very badly hurt—perhaps after the double beating the other fellow had received at his hands he was worse off than Perk—an idea that started the latter chuckling, even if the act caused him a sudden dart of pain that made him wince. ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... may go so far—to see that no 'making' at all is required. You've only one link with the Brooks, but that link is golden. How can we, all of us, by this time, not have grasped and admired the beauty of your feeling for Lady Julia? There it is—I make you wince: to speak of it is to profane it. Let us by all means not speak of it then, but let us act on it." He had at last turned his face from her, and it now took in, from the vantage of his high position, only the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... Gaston did not wince. He had taken all the revenge he needed. The idea rather pleased him than other wise. He had instincts about art, and he liked pictures; statuary, poetry, romance; but he had no standards. He was keen also to see the life ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... my horse will wince If he comes within so many yards of a prince; For to tell you true, and in rhyme, He was foal'd in Queen Elizabeth's time; When the great Earl of Lester In his castle did feast her. —BEN JONSON, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... tinware and steel put an unpleasant emphasis to the question. It was so close to his head that it made him wince, and now—with a wide area within reach about him—he began scraping up the sand for an added protection. There came a long silence after that third clatter of distress from his cooking utensils. To David Carrigan, even in his hour of deadly ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... Too well she knew that furrow between his eyes and wanted unspeakably to tuck him back into bed, lower the shades, and prepare him a vile mixture good for exactly everything that did not ail him. But Sara could be wise even with her son. So instead she flung up the shade, letting him wince at the clatter, dragged off the bedclothes into a tremendous heap on the chair, beat up the pillows, and turned the mattress ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... such effect. Once in an oculist's consulting clinic in Tokyo I was struck by the fact that when water was squirted into the eyes of a succession of patients of both sexes and various ages, they did not wince as Western people ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... but the lifted face of her! And the twitched lip and tilted head! Yet he did neither wince nor stir,— Only—his hands clenched; and, instead Of words, he answered with a stare That stammered not in aught it said, As might ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... a mountain with dark pines and sun He stood between the armies, and his shout Rolled from the empyrean above the host: "Bid any little flea ye have come forth, And wince at death upon my finger-nail!" He turned his large-boned face; and all his steel Tossed into beams the lustre of the noon; And all the shaggy horror of his locks Rustled like locusts in a field of corn. The meagre pupil of his shameless eye Moved like a cormorant over a glassy sea. He stretched ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... exposures; it flaunts its fraudulence so nakedly. We pay them as we pay those who show us, in huge exaggeration, the monsters of our drinking-water; or those who daily predict the fall of Britain. We pay them for the pain they inflict, pay them, and wince, and hurry on. And truly there is nothing that can shake the conscience like a beggar's thanks; and that polity in which such protestations can be purchased for a shilling, seems no ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Guy began to wince. There was much truth in what Mrs. Noah had said. He did devise various methods of getting rid of Jessie, when Maddy was in his library, but it had never looked to him in just the light it did when presented by Mrs. Noah, and he ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... man wince ever so slightly, and was pleased at it; but he was, as she had once told him in the old days, grit all through, and he smiled ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... not inclined to lose time. "I am particularly sorry not to see Lady Torrens," she said, "because I really wanted to have a serious talk with her.... Yes, about the boy and girl—your boy and my girl." A curious consciousness almost made her wince. Think how easily either of the young lovers might have been a joint possession! If one, then both, surely, minus their identities and the status quo? It was like sudden unexpected lemon in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... of a long monologue, as he imprisoned the young Greek in the shroud-like shaving-cloth; "mysteries of Minerva and the Graces. I get the flower of men's thoughts, because I seize them in the first moment after shaving. (Ah! you wince a little at the lather: it tickles the outlying limits of the nose, I admit.) And that is what makes the peculiar fitness of a barber's shop to become a resort of wit and learning. For, look now at a druggist's shop: there is a dull ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... of white caries on the lateral surface of an incisor. McTeague filled it with gold, enlarging the cavity with hard-bits and hoe-excavators, and burring in afterward with half-cone burrs. The cavity was deep, and Trina began to wince and moan. To hurt Trina was a positive anguish for McTeague, yet an anguish which he was obliged to endure at every hour of the sitting. It was harrowing—he sweated under it—to be forced to torture her, of all women in the world; could anything ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... for tired optics," said Tom, giving the man's hand a squeeze that made him wince. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... highfaluting^; spread- eagle [U.S.]. elate, elated; jubilant, triumphant, exultant; in high feather; flushed, flushed with victory; cock-a-hoop; on stilts. vaunted &c v.. Adv. vauntingly &c adj.. Phr. let the galled jade wince [Hamlet]; facta ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... coming home for lunch then!" Her voice was cold, sharp, like a steel knife dipped in lemon juice. There was a bit of a curl on the tip of it that made one wince as it went through the soul. Little Mrs. Carter flushed painfully under her sensitive skin, up to the roots of her light hair. She had been pretty in her girlhood, and Mark had her coloring in ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... his son into a little, low-browed, dingy room at the end of the hall. Its grimy untidiness matched the old Captain's clothes, but it was his one spot of refuge in his own house; here he could scatter his tobacco ashes almost unrebuked, and play on his harmonicon without seeing Gussie wince and draw in her breath; for Mrs. Cyrus rarely entered the "cabin." "I worry so about its disorderliness that I won't go in," she used to say, in a resigned way. And the Captain accepted her decision with resignation of his ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... big, but over-furnished. Chelsea would have moaned aloud. Mr. Wilcox had eschewed those decorative schemes that wince, and relent, and refrain, and achieve beauty by sacrificing comfort and pluck. After so much self-colour and self-denial, Margaret viewed with relief the sumptuous dado, the frieze, the gilded wall-paper, amid whose foliage parrots sang. It would never ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... they have collected from smug-faced church-and-chapel-goers at home. Labour Members are in the pay of Germany and frequent infamous flats in the West-End. Liberal Cabinet Ministers—sometimes, more shame to them, of decent birth—wince consciously when reminded of the taint of their association with plebeian colleagues. These things, and many more of equal moment, I have learnt from Mr. STANLEY PORTAL HYATT, who in The Way of the Cardines (WERNER LAURIE) describes how Sir Gerald, of that famous family, captured, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... 'I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, "I'll conquer that fellow"; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do it. What is that upon ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the reviewer is very terrible indeed in his jaunty vulgarization of your distinguished personality, and you have to wince and redden, and rue the day you let him inside your house, and live down those light familiar paragraphs in which he describes you and the way you dress and how you look and what jolly things you say; and on what free and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the servants' hall. The coarse rich man rates his domestic, but there is a thought in the domestic's brain, docile and respectful as he looks, which makes the matter equal, which would madden the rich man if he knew it—make him wince as with a shrewdest twinge of hereditary gout. For insult and degradation are not without their peculiar solaces. You may spit upon Shylock's gaberdine, but the day comes when he demands his pound of flesh; every blow, every insult, not without a certain ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... back in his big leather-covered chair. "You think that I blow my own horn too loudly," he continued, "but, after all, who knows how to blow it half so well as I do? For the same reason some over-sensitive nerve of yours may wince at my behaviour at times, my lack of dignity or reserve; but have I ever lost a vote—I put it to you plainly—or the shadow of a vote by an occasional resort to spectacular advertising? It pays to advertise in politics, we all know that!—but it was honest advertising ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... She stands beside that crumbling mother in her hate, And, though we know so well—she and I, O we know— That she could love no mother nor partake in anguish, Yet she is flouted when the King forsakes her dam, She must protect her very flesh, her tenderer flesh, Although she cannot wince; she's wild in her cold brain, And soon I must be made to pay a cruel price For this one gloomy joy in my uncherished life. Envy and greed are watching me aloof (Yes, now none of the women will walk with me), Longing to see me ruined, but she'll do it ... It is a ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... with, that you are no longer free-born, no longer a man of family. Birth, freedom, ancestry, all these you will leave on the other side of the door, when you enter upon the fulfilment of your servile contract; for Freedom will never bear you company in that ignoble station. You are a slave, wince as you may at the word; and, be assured, a slave of many masters; a downward-looking drudge, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... plainsman's yell of exultation split the night like the yelp of a coyote, and he brought his hand down on Wade's back with a force which made the latter wince. "By the great horned toad, that's talkin! That's the finest news I've heard since my old mammy said to the parson, 'Call him Bill, for ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... at you!" said the Colonel, in expostulation, and, in the next sentence, revealed a secret which he was guarding carefully from everyone. "See here, little girl, you've got to face thousands and not wince, and you can't ride ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... base board as though about to climb up. For a moment the men stood silent with surprise and terror. Then, as they stared they saw the cockroach was getting larger. The Big Business Man laid his hand on the Doctor's arm with a grip that made the Doctor wince. ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... matron who preceded her, paused for a moment, and looked at her with a wince in his thin features that might be taken for an indication of either pleasure or pain. He' closed the sympathetic eye, and wiped it—but this not seeming to satisfy him, he then closed both, and blew his nose with a little ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... Look back at the night! Do you remember the portrait? You commanded me to stop—commanded, as you've always commanded my fate, and I was powerless. To me, that was a parental command—from you, you who deliberately wouldn't be my parent! Did you see me wince under it? If you hadn't done it, you'd have found me out right then! I'm not a physical thing, and I couldn't have moved it! I only said I was going to Maurice's! I couldn't have come here if you hadn't brought me! When you wondered, as we were starting out, whether I had a hat, I stooped ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... then no valid reason—no reason at all unless she were willing to go rummaging in that dark room of her mind for it—why John should always wince like that when one reminded him of Mary. It was a fact, though, that he did, and his sister was too honest-minded to pretend she ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... was weak in the knees, and weak in the back, and weak all over, and Jenkins had to beat him all the time, to make him go. He had been a cab horse, and his mouth had been jerked, and twisted, and sawed at, till one would think there could be no feeling left in it; still I have seen him wince and curl up his lip when Jenkins thrust in the frosty ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... One reason I did not tell you what we were doing, was that the process was not very pleasant, and it used to leave me rather upset and sick for a while—you caught me too soon after it that morning you signed the contracts. Don't wince; you had nothing ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... our turn, have endeavoured to turn to the illustration of our pages. There is no sinister motive in the selection; but if we have hit the white, or rather the black, of such variableness, "let the galled jade wince," and pay the Mirror the stale compliment ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... way Enid said this made him wince a little. He felt his burning face grow a shade warmer. Even after she went downstairs he kept wishing she ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... to wince while the mountaineer kneaded his bruised chest with the liquid ointment. The burning presently gave ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Well, the day the battalion paraded, Mr. Peter Jordan said something about a vacancy in his store. I went around there to-day and I found he meant a sort of floor-walker—and then you said something one day"—he paused and waited for the older man to take him up, but noting only a minute wince continued—"about a position, so I thought I'd come and ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Jim's hands gripped her with a force that made her wince. And now she grew as afraid of him as she had been for him. But she had spirit enough to grow ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... her feet, and her sharp, involuntary exclamation of pain made him wince internally. Perhaps it was a ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a golden mirror in the sun; Next answer'd: "Conscience, dimm'd or by its own Or other's shame, will feel thy saying sharp. Thou, notwithstanding, all deceit remov'd, See the whole vision be made manifest. And let them wince who have their withers wrung. What though, when tasted first, thy voice shall prove Unwelcome, on digestion it will turn To vital nourishment. The cry thou raisest, Shall, as the wind doth, smite the proudest summits; Which is of honour ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... sorrow falls, receives it upon the armor of a rigid fatalism, who wipes scarcely a tear from his hard, dry face, and says, "Well, it cannot be helped; things are so ordered." Below all this there is often a sulky, half-angry sentiment, as though the victim felt the blow, but was determined not to wince,-as though there was an acknowledgment of weakness, but also a display of pride,-a feeling that we cannot resist sorrow, yet that sorrow has no business to come, and now that it has come the sufferer will not yield to it. This, evidently, is not resignation, religious resignation, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... accusation, but the Countess de Mattos did not wince under the lash. Even a coward may be brave in a hand-to-hand fight for life; and it was only physically that she ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... man!" said Father Payne. "Female bloodsuckers are worse still. A man, at all events, only wants the blood; a woman wants the pleasure of seeing you wince as well!" ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... my lot in the office, I continued faithful to my first love. I have introduced pieces of word-painting into the most commonplace business letters which have, I am told, considerably astonished the recipients. My refined sarcasm has made defaulting creditors writhe and wince. Occasionally, like the great Silas Wegg, I would drop into poetry, and so raise the whole tone of the correspondence. Thus what could be more elegant than my rendering of the firm's instructions to the captain of one of their vessels. It ran in ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Laughing"—over Jack's body! Margaret was in her stride back to her mistress-ship again yet her eye changed instantly with her mood when she saw me wince. Indeed, her mind flashed after my mind like a hawk after a pigeon, but I dodged the trouble by looking casually ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... to wince a little. After a moment's hesitation, she walked slowly over to the fence and ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... and asked Mr. Lenox a question which took the latter to the teller's counter. David sat for some time drumming on his desk with the fingers of both hands. A succession of violent coughs came from the front room. His mouth and brows contracted in a wince, and rising, he put on his coat and hat and went ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I didn't mean to make you angry; ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... botanist would, I suppose, incline to something as they say, "scientific." You wince under that most offensive epithet—and I am able to give you my intelligent sympathy—though "pseudo-scientific" and "quasi-scientific" are worse by far for the skin. You would begin to talk of scientific languages, of Esperanto, La Langue Bleue, New Latin, Volapuk, and Lord Lytton, of the philosophical ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... the great beauty of last season; and it was considered rather shabby of the young Marquis of Farintosh to leave town without offering to change Miss Blackcap's name. Heaven bless you! this year Farintosh will not look at Miss Blackcap! He finds people at home when (ha! I see you wince, my suffering innocent!)—when he calls in Queen Street; yes, and Lady Kew, who is one of the cleverest women in England, will listen for hours to Lord Farintosh's conversation; than whom the Rotten Row of Hyde Park cannot show a greater booby. Miss Blackcap may retire, like ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stolen over me, and finds me, I fear, little better or wiser than at the end of the last. How we wince at our reflexions and still go on in the same courses! how we resolve and break our resolutions! It is a common error to wish we could recall the past and be young again, and swear what things we ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... but with a wince. "I've noticed," he said, "that there's a certain kind of gossip that rarely gets about unless there's some cause for it—on the principle of no smoke without fire. If you've heard anything, it's ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the readers of the ——"would be very interested in knowing exactly how the thing (interviewing) was done. How did the ideas come? How did they take shape? And what was the method of work? Neither at these nor at any other questions did Mr. Furniss wince. It must not be forgotten that when he was in America last year he was interviewed, on an average, once a day; and a man who has passed through such an experience as that is unlikely to recoil before any ordinary ordeal; although Mr. Furniss ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... history. At all events, there is something remarkable in his vivid pictures not in the least traceable to literary form nor dependent upon a brilliant command of diction. The characters in his book are warm, passionate human beings, and the air they breathe is real air. The critic may wince and make faces over lapses from taste, and protest against a literary style which cannot be defended from any point of view; yet there is Mary in flesh and blood, and there is Caskoden, a veritable prig of a good fellow—there, indeed, are ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... you! It is men women suffer for; that was what your scholar meant—for such fine gentlemen as the one you have just watched while he rode away. More fools they! No man shall make me womanly in such a fashion, I promise you! Let them wince ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Strangers' Gallery or behind the Ladies' Grille. From the Press Gallery "Our Special Word-painter" looked down upon the statesmen beneath him, his eagle eye ready to detect on the moment the Angry Flush, the Wince, or the Sudden Paling of enemy, the Grim Smile or the ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... hand for an instant; the unconscious inference of this speech made him wince. She understood, then, that she was going to do something which her old kinswomen would think was a hurt to their pride, and so would be silent over it in consequence. And yet she did not hesitate. She must indeed ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... multitude of tiny pin pricks over the entire surface of his body. The suffering was not intense, but the irritation made him squirm and wince. He could not discover the cause of his discomfort, but at the professor's command it ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... course——" He broke off with a wave of his hand which, although not pointedly, seemed to indicate Cousin Egbert, who once more wore the hunted look about his eyes and who sat by uneasily. I saw him wince. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... said it she looked him in the face with a curiosity most cruel to herself; but Georges did not wince, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... enough, but it made the Captain wince all the same. They were his own words. But he did not give ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... quite right, Mr. Prendergast," said Herbert, with a tear forming in his eye; "and though it may be possible that the affair hurried him to his death, there was no alternative but that he should know the whole." At this Mr. Prendergast seemed to wince as he sat in his chair. "And I am sure of this," continued Herbert, "that had he been left to the villanies of those two men, his last days would have been much less comfortable than they were, My mother feels that quite as strongly as I do." And then Mr. Prendergast looked as ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... find you here, and as it was rather important, I took the liberty of introducing myself. We plan to run a story, featuring the dangers of masquerading in society, and of course it hinges on the death of Mr. Turnbull. I'm sorry"—he apologized as he saw Barbara wince. "I realize the topic is one to make you feel badly; but I promise to ask only few questions." His smile was very engaging and ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... implying things was not one of Maud's faults. Innuendos were beneath her—what she wanted to say she said outright. But sometimes, as in this case, her brother wished she was not so utterly indifferent to the effect her bluntness produced. It was because he had seen Margaret wince under it that he had exerted himself to remove any unpleasant impression that her words might have left on the ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... rage, one man seized a long pole, and in a dozen blows had broken everything to atoms. Idols, red cloth, incense sticks, bowls of sacrificial rice and swords lay in a shapeless heap. And with ugly kicks my men ground the ruin into yet smaller pieces. Somehow it made me wince. It was a brutal sight; to treat gods, even if they be false, in ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... obliged to you, Miss Cuyler," Van Bibber said. He tried to raise his hat, but the efforts of the gentleman who had struck him from behind had been successful and the hat came off only after a wrench that made him wince. ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... [803]"if he be guilty and deserve it, let him amend, whoever he is, and not be angry." "He that hateth correction is a fool," Prov. xii. 1. If he be not guilty, it concerns him not; it is not my freeness of speech, but a guilty conscience, a galled back of his own that makes him wince. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... wince, but at that moment a call from the huddled man in the corner attracted his attention. He bent over him, drew back the covering and revealed in the lantern's ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... not wince, but he involuntarily cast a glance behind him. Those were times when people were cautious of being overheard. But Del Ferice knew his man, and he knew that the only way in which he could continue the interview was to ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... mean that you are in the habit of swearing?" said Janetta, with a direct simplicity, which made Wyvis smile and wince at the same time. ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "you would give anything for leave to take those words back! You needn't try to hide the wince—we fully appreciate the situation! What do you say, you fellows? How about last night's idea? Who mooted it? Shall we send him back by canoe to German East, with a guarantee that if he doesn't go we'll hand over diary ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... own brother as you murdered mine?" demanded Rosamund, speaking now for the first time, and rising as she spoke, a faint flush coming to overspread her pallor. She saw him wince; she saw the mocking lustful anger perish in his face, leaving it vacant for a moment. Then it became grim again with a fresh resolve. Her words had altered all the current of his intentions. They fixed in him ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... to be fairly near them; and, yes, he was a good shot—she could see that. But, at first, the thud of the beautiful pheasants falling to the ground caused her to wince—she, who had looked upon the shattered face of Ladislaus, her husband, with only a quiver of disgust! But these creatures were in the glory of their beauty and the joy of life, and had preyed upon the souls ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... of pain come on his face, saw him wince, saw him writhe, saw him rise on his toes. Then, with a sudden squatting heave, Banion cast him full length in front of him, upon his back! Before he had time to move he was upon him, pinning him down. A growl ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... the stone flooring. Val turned his head cautiously and tried not to wince. Rupert was coming in with a bowl of water, from which steam still arose. Across his arm lay a towel and in his other hand was ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton |
