"Blinks" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... night is growing better, And every jet of smoke grows jetter, While yet there blinks sufficient light, Bring in those skeletons that fright Most men into fits, but that We relish for their want of fat. Bring them in, the Cimabues With all or each that horribly true is, Francias, Giottos, Masaccios, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... despondency. Now, who is it that can view these perturbations of the world with a tranquil and rational hope? I answer, that it is only he who views his own time in the light of the eternal purposes of God. The religious man is bound to be an optimist, not with the foolish optimism which blinks the facts of life; but with the sober ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... are now gane, a' wha ventured to save; The new grass is springing on the tap o' their grave: But the sun thro' the mirk blinks blythe in my e'e, 'I'll shine on ye yet in yere ain countrie.' Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, Hame, hame, hame, to ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... tampered with, and wrought, By heated kisses, mischief, and has brought Some vagrant freckles, while from here and there A few wild locks of vagabond brown hair Escape the old straw hat the sun looks through, And blinks to meet his Irish eyes of blue. Barefooted, innocent of coat or vest, His grey checked shirt unbuttoned at his chest, Both hardy hands within their usual nest— His breeches pockets—so, he waits to rest His little fingers, somewhat tired and worn, ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... retiring and in situation retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three feet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's jet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest midsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of cellarage staircase against which belated civilians generally ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Beg having pocketed his gold and secured his coat, I began to look for that something for myself which was to astonish me: nothing, however, was produced, notwithstanding certain significant winks and blinks with which the ked khoda ever and anon ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... fountain-bubbles and stars. He stares at her, stretches out his huge paw to grab a fairy, feathery tress of her dark hair. Defensive, she puts up her little hand. Its touch is an electric shock to the marauder. He blinks, and rubs his arm. He has a mighty respect for her. He could take her up in his fingers and eat her like a quail—the one satisfactory method of eating a quail is unfortunately practised only by ogres—but ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... River, as he stood there looking down into the upturned faces, observed—with what feelings we know not—that these braves sometimes exhibited a few of the same owlish blinks ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... warehouses. Before the door, in a spot where the scorching sun-rays came but fitfully between a mesh of fast-decaying thatch, the old hag who had followed Rosemary McClean lay snoozing, muttering to herself, and blinking every now and then as a street dog blinks at the passers-by. She took no notice of Mahommed Gunga until he swore ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... jumped the flower-beds again, Laddie, who had fallen comfortably asleep among the dandelions, deciding after a few lazy blinks to stay where he was. A slender boy in grey was waiting for them in the veranda. He was like Prue, but fairer, and his eyes were peculiarly ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... Many had asked for it, Dysart amongst others; but she had kept it open for—the one who didn't want it. However, fibs of this sort one blinks at where pretty girls are the criminals. Her tone is delicately sarcastic. She would willingly suppress the sarcasm altogether as beneath her, but she is very angry; and when a woman is angry there is generally ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... shifts from one foot to the other, looks at the table with the green cloth on it, and blinks his eyes violently as though what was before him was not the cloth but the sun. ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... fairy you must know, Little Barbara tells you so; When he cocks his ears and blinks, Then ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... reader's curiosity, however, is not so easily satisfied. He blinks at the author through his scientific spectacles, ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... know, that life is one thing, and comfort is another thing; grace is one thing, and warm blinks of God's face is another. The one is necessary to the very being of a Christian, the other not, but only necessary to his comfortable being; and therefore they should be content, if God give them grace, though they miss comfort for ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... loath to pronounce that stern heart crushing word, that yet "has been, and must be," and which, during my boisterous and unsettled morning, has been, alas! a too familiar one with me. I hope I shall always bless Heaven for my fair Blinks, although, as the day has wore on, I have had my own share of lee currents, hard gales, and foul weather; and many an old and dear friend has lately swamped alongside of me, while few new ones have shoved out to replace them. But suffering, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... sae far as to say that, John. Ye see, I've only kent they twa to study carefully—an' it's no fair to judge the whole sex by just the twa examples, an' it were—(Running on) But it's gey hard, an' I was wantin' to tell wee Alexander a special fine story the nicht. (Removes glasses and blinks his eyes.) Aweel. ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... world told half as harmless lies! Would all its real fools were half as wise As he who blinks through dull Dundreary's eyes I Would all the unhanged bandits of the age Were like the peaceful ruffians of the stage! Would all the cankers wasting town and state, The mob of rascals, little thieves and great, Dealers in ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... thin, My feet unsteady. When the leaves awaken My mother carries me in her golden arms; I'll soon put on my womanhood and marry The spirits of wood and water, but who can tell When I was born for the first time? I think I am much older than the eagle cock That blinks and blinks on Ballygawley Hill, And he is the oldest thing under ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire • William Butler Yeats
... white shall know The two friends passing by, and poplar smile All gold within; the church-top fowl shall glow To lure us on, and we shall rest awhile Where the wild apple blooms above the stile; The yellow frog beneath blinks up half bold, Then scares himself into the deeper green. And thus spring was for you in days of old, And thus will be when I too walk unseen By one that thinks me friend, the best that ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... those days, was both serious and romantic. The bride always loves to open her eyes upon rosy prospects, but persecution in that generation shattered the beautiful dream. Her future was then like a landscape, over which storm followed storm, with only alternate blinks of sunlight. Husband and wife were in jeopardy every hour; to-morrow the wedding gown might be the winding sheet. When John Knox found the woman of his choice, he said, "My bird, are you willing to marry me?" She replied, "Yes, Sir." Then ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... born—no lads nor lasses came To grace the rite or give the child a name; Nor grave conceited nurse, of office proud, Bore the young Christian roaring through the crowd: In a small chamber was my office done, Where blinks through paper'd panes the setting sun; Where noisy sparrows, perch'd on penthouse near, Chirp tuneless joy, and mock the frequent tear; Bats on their webby wings in darkness move, And feebly shriek their melancholy love. No Sailor came; the months in terror fled! Then news ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... eyes at her quick, then steadies 'em down and blinks solemn. Kind of weird, starey eyes, them buttermilk blue ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Jeanie Morrison, The thochts o' bygane years Still fling their shadows ower my path, And blind my een wi' tears: They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears, And sair and sick I pine, As memory idly summons up The blithe blinks ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... to do without The flaming boon of matches, having none, And cannot furnish us as he desires, Being a grocer and the best of men, But murmurs vaguely of a future week When matches shall be numerous again As leaves in Vallombrosa and as cheap. Blinks, the tobacconist, he too is spent With weary waiting in a matchless land; What Siftings cannot get cannot be got By men like Blinks, that young tobacconist, Who tried with all a patriot's fiery zeal To join the Army, but was sent away For varicose and too protuberant veins; And being foiled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... was clear for two hours after breakfast, and when Ferriss returned from his task of path-finding he reported to Bennett that he had seen a great many water-blinks off ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... day be Mrs. Weir of Hermiston; swift, also, to recognise in his stumbling or throttled utterance the death-knell of these expectations, and constant, poor girl! in her large-minded madness, to go on and to reck nothing of the future. But these unfinished references, these blinks in which his heart spoke, and his memory and reason rose up to silence it before the words were well uttered, gave her unqualifiable agony. She was raised up and dashed down again bleeding. The recurrence of the subject forced her, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... king, "Thou didst walk hither to tell me of him; now hie thee back to him, running at full speed. 15 Invite him to come in; and let every man who sees the light, and every man who blinks the eye, stand ready to do ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... the sea, While day blinks in the lift sae hie, Till clay-cauld death shall blin' my e'e, Ye ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... swear by sun an' moon, And ev'ry star that blinks aboon, Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon Just gaun to see you; And ev'ry ither pair that's done, Mair ta'en I'm ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... herald cries: "Who will this woman take With smallest dowry? She can cook and bake, And many household duties well perform, Although she does not claim a beauty's charm. Who wants a wife?" The ugly crone with blinks Doth hideous look, till every bidder shrinks. A sorry spectacle, mis-shapen, gross, She is, and bidders now are at a loss How much to ask to take the hag to wife. At last one cries: "Five bilti,[20] for relief Of herald I will take, to start the bid!" ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... tell the young lady as I never went for to hurt her, and what the genlmn ses," nods and shambles and shivers and smears and blinks, and half-laughs and half-cries a farewell to the woman, and takes his creeping way ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... he strains like a horse and reads addresses from a note-book as he hurries along. A child is distributing morning papers; she is a little girl who has Saint Vitus's dance; she jerks her angular body in all directions, twitches her shoulders, blinks, hustles from door to door, climbs the stairs in the high-storied houses, presses bells, and hurries on, leaving papers on every doorstep. A dog follows her and makes ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... have her secret, and she must treat you with favour and observance, and repose confidence in you, and hold private intercourse with you, till she weeps with one eye for the absent lover whom she is never to see again, and blinks with the other blithely upon him who is in presence; and then if you know not how to improve the relation in which you stand with her, you are not the brisk lively lad that all the world takes ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... controversial abuse,—these are propositions which I cannot conceive to be disputed by any competent critic aware of the facts. If they have ever been denied, it is merely from the amiable but uncritical point of view which blinks all a man's personal defects in consideration of his literary genius. That we cannot afford to do here, especially as Milton's personal defects had no small influence on his literary character. But having honestly set down ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... for?" he demanded. The form of the words was truculent, but the words themselves slid in a sort of spiritless fashion from the corner of that crooked mouth of his, and he added in the next breath, "I'll open up for you, when I've lit the blinks." ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... in the passage, the door slowly opens, and an elderly labourer, hat in hand, peers in. No one takes the least notice of him. He leans on his stick and blinks his eyes, looking all round the room; then taps with the stick and clears his throat—'Be he in yet?' he asks, with emphasis on the 'he.' 'No, he be not in,' replies a junior, mocking the old man's accent and grammar. The senior looks ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... won't. It can think again," said Helen May positively. "You needn't kill it, but if you'd chase it off somewhere out of sight—it gives me shivers. I don't like the way it stares at a person and blinks." ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... purrs No less when Soo-Ti barks and stirs. She blinks and blinks and lets you share Her bowl of milk, her fav'rite chair. For you she hides her cruel claw And taps you with a velvet paw; And, mastered by your lordly air, For you is meek and debonair. Even should ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... platform, and occupies a chair, in which he blinks and smiles in feeble confusion, while the Professor studies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... has frapper a nos brisees; brisees means "blinks." According to Dr. Ash's Dictionary, 1775, "Blinks are the boughs or branches thrown in the way of a deer to stop ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... here comes Alcy now,' I says, as the boy comes up with the dog, 'n' my new boss stretches his number three neck out of his number nine collar 'n' blinks ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... m-i-n-e-r-l without plenty uv diggin'. I have been diggin' thar for the past forty year fur it, an' haint never struck it yit, I hope you gen-tul-men will strike it some time endurin' the next forty year." Here, with winks and blinks and clinched teeth, the old Colonel pulled his coat tail; he was spoiling the town boom. But he would not down. He continued in the same eloquent strain: "Gent-tul-men, you caint expect to find ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw, The burn rins blithe and fain: There's nought wi' me I wadna gie To look ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... verge morosely gray Appears, while clots of flying foam Break from its muddy monochrome, And a light blinks up far away. I sigh: "My eyes now as all day Behold her ebon loops of hair!" Like bursting bonds the wind responds, "Nay, wait for tresses ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... by nervous twitching, he possesses all the external characteristics of his employment. In talking, he vociferates like men with the scurvy; his voice is sepulchral, and when he stops talking his features come to rest only after repeated agitations; he blinks three times, after which his face ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ground, has clambered over the window-sill, taken a flying leap across the narrow floor, and is chuckling full in the agreeable face asleep upon the pillow. The face, feeling the warmth, and conscious, through its closed eyelids, of the light, presently stretches its eyebrows, then blinks, and finally yawns,—Ah—h! Thirty-two even, white teeth, in perfect order; a great, red, healthy tongue, and a round, mellow roar, the parting remonstrance of the sleepy god, taking flight for the day. Thereupon a voice, fetched from some profounder source ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... All in a lump, Sits like a toad on the top of a stump. He stretches and sighs, And blinks with his eyes, Bats at the beetles and fights ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... are now gane, a' wha ventured to save, The new grass is springing on the tap o' their grave; But the sun through the mirk blinks blithe in my e'e, 'I'll shine on ye yet in yer ain countrie.' Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, Hame, hame, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... hope, though heaven I grant you knows of what— The kind that blinks and rises when it falls, Whether it sees a reason why or not— That ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... faithfully paid the midshipman the two guineas for his assistance, was now on the poop keeping his watch, as midshipmen usually do; that is, stretched out on the signal lockers, and composing himself to sleep after the most approved fashion, answering the winks of the stars by blinks of his eyes, until at last he shut them to keep them warm. But, before he had quite composed himself, he thought of the goose and the five guineas. The wind was from the same quarter, blowing soft and mild; Jack laid in ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... couthy cracks[27] begin whan supper's owre; The cheering bicker[28] gars them glibly gash[29] O' Simmer's showery blinks, an Winter's sour, Whase floods did erst their mailins' produce hash.[30] 'Bout kirk an' market eke their tales gae on; How Jock woo'd Jenny here to be his bride; An' there, how Marion, for a bastard son, Upo' the cutty-stool was forced to ride; The waefu' ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... hollows and deep shady water-courses, where the tallest and most impenetrable jungle conceals the winding and impervious paths, hidden in the gloom and obscurity of the densely-matted grass, the lordly tiger crouches, and blinks away the day. With the approach of night, however, his mood undergoes a change. He hears the tinkle of the bells, borne by some of the members of a retreating herd, that may have been feeding in close proximity to his haunt all day long, and from which he has ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... industry has left its sign-manual upon the township. For the great, open side-walks make for distinction and spaciousness, and there shall be found in all Dorset, no brighter, cheerfuller place than this. Bridport's very workhouse, south-facing and bowered in green, blinks half a hundred windows amiably at the noonday sun and helps to soften the life-failure of those who dwell therein. Off Barrack Street it stands, and at the time of the terror, when Napoleon threatened, soldiers hived here and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... my bonnie byke! My drappie aiblins blinks the noo, An' leesome luve has lapt the dyke Forgatherin' just a wee bit fou. And SCOTIA! while thy rantin' lunt Is mirk and moop with gowans fine, I'll stowlins pit my unco brunt, An' cleek my duds for auld ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... irritating note. This drives Yank into a sudden fury. While the other men have turned full around and stopped dumfounded by the spectacle of Mildred standing there in her white dress, Yank does not turn far enough to see her. Besides, his head is thrown back, he blinks upward through the murk trying to find the owner of the whistle, he brandishes his shovel murderously over his head in one hand, pounding on his chest, gorilla-like, with the other, shouting:] Toin off dat whistle! Come down outa ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... them together was complete, but a little misunderstanding was caused all round, when Mr. Tasker came in with the tea, by the series of nods and blinks by which the captain strove to call his niece's attention to various facial and other differences between his servant and their visitor. Mr. Tredgold, after standing it for some time, created a little consternation by inquiring whether he had got a ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... signs," said he, "you will surely know whether to lay on the hounds and cast down the blinks which hinder the stricken deer in its flight. But above all I pray you, Nigel, to have a care in the use of the terms of the craft, lest you should make some blunder at table, so that those who are wiser may have the laugh of you, and we who ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she is not quite sure. How she and all her family finally got away and became happy wild birds again is another story. But while Quackalina sits and blinks upon the bank among the mallows, with all her ugly "beautiful" children around her, she sometimes even yet wonders if the whole thing could have been ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Major, describing our plight and asking that, if possible, another tractor might be sent back from Latisana to pull us. This message never reached the Major, but was opened by another Field officer, who sent back this flatulent reply. "If you are with Major Blinks, you had better ask him whether you may use your own discretion and, if necessary, remove breech blocks and abandon guns." I was not with Major Blinks, and I neither knew nor cared where he might be. Nor had I any intention ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... buckled shoes, white shirt, very neat in every detail, with a long white or spotted handkerchief tied round the neck, the long end hanging down in front. The face cadaverous, with sunken eyes and a leering smile, and close cropped red hair. The figure blinks at the candle, then slowly raises its hands and unties the handkerchief, its head falls on to one shoulder, it holds handkerchief out at arm's length ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... 'tends like she's mad, An' says folks got to walk the chalk When she's around, er wisht they had! I play out on our porch an' talk To Th' Raggedy Man 'at mows our lawn; An' he says, "Whew!" an' nen leans on His old crook-scythe, and blinks his eyes, An' sniffs all 'round an' says, "I swawn! Ef my old nose don't tell me lies, It 'pears like I smell custard-pies!" An' nen he'll say, "Clear out o' my way! They's time fer work, an' time for play! Take yer dough, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... you hear how he scrapes his spoon? And he always blinks before he speaks. I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'm sure I am sorry for those who sat opposite ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Blinks of sunshine touched the lower face of the crag, and in their track the dark rock glittered with a steely luster, but trails of mist rolled among the crannies above. Below, a precipitous slope of small stones that the dalesmen call a scree ran down to a hollow ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... pies!—had come and gone. With furtive blinks, Mr. Sam had unbuttoned the lower buttons of a black, Mr. Sim of a red waistcoat; they leaned back in their chairs, their sharp little features relaxed, and they stirred their coffee with the air of men ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... rind!" confided the Cap'n to Hiram. "I can circle him round and round the pen easy enough, but when I try to head him through the gate, he just sets back and blinks them hog eyes at me and grunts. To get near him at all I had to act simple, and I reckon I've overdone it. Now he thinks I don't know enough to know that old Bodge is mostly whiskers and guesses. He's known Bodge longer'n I have, and Bodge don't seem to be right bait. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... watchmen stare, and stand aghast, As on we hurry through the dark; The watch-light blinks as we go past, The watch-dog shrinks and fears to bark; The watch-tower's bell sounds shrill; and, hark! The free wind blows—we've left the town— A wide sepulchral ground I mark, And on a tombstone place ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger |
