"Squeamish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I am no squeamish man, or I should have passed a wretched life. The man who is perpetually travelling must bear with him a pliant nature that will adapt itself to any society, to various codes of morals, habits of thought, rules of conduct, and varieties of temperament. ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... the burning and looting, which, as far as we could understand, was the raison d'etre of the column. However that might be, there was a tremendous fuss on their return, and all sorts of accusations made re looting. There is no disguising the fact that we were altogether too squeamish, and that the orders on these and subsequent occasions were capable of more than one interpretation. Here were we in an enemy's country, badly off for a cart, let us say, for the officers' mess; the very thing is found in an unoccupied farm; to bring it along and use ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... Lauderdale. Perhaps it is natural that the most callous and impudent vice should be found in the near neighbourhood of unreasonable and impracticable virtue. Where enthusiasts are ready to destroy or to be destroyed for trifles magnified into importance by a squeamish conscience, it is not strange that the very name of conscience should become a byword of contempt to cool and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... servants are not up to what they used to be. They are getting squeamish, and you have to be so careful how you speak to them or they will leave you. We are kept always on the lookout for a ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... of these two people is pointed out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing the world. Praise everybody, I say to such: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her, mightily taken. So when she and my wife had done kissin', I put in my little oar. 'How d'ye do, Miss—' I won't mention names, though upon my dick I don't know why I should be squeamish. But there it was; and I'd have kissed her, as you do kiss your wife's—well, cousin, let's say—if you want to. Bless you, not a bit of it. Proud as pepper. Gives me a finger. 'Quite well,' says she. 'Quite well, thank you —' and drops me. ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the most elevated classes of society. He visited princes, dukes, the sons of ancient senators, and it was on them or the ladies of their circle that he made the experiments of his misapplied talents. The females, particularly, however squeamish they were, were never sufficiently so to prevent themselves from being plundered by him. For several months the police were on the look out for this seducing young man, who, changing his dress and abode incessantly, escaped from their clutch ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... call getting vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave in the wilderness,—cut off his skirts, Sir! ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... and he cites Herodotus, Seneca, Suetonius, Plutarch, Erasmus, Thomas More, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Lactantlas, Eusebius, and the Bible itself, as examples occasionally of the very reverse of a squeamish euphemism. Of even greater interest is a passage in which he foresees the charges of cruelty, ruthlessness, and breach of literary etiquette, likely to be brought against him on account of his treatment of Morus, and expounds his theory on that subject. The passage may fitly conclude our account ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Stokoe's vengeance; which perhaps was the wisest thing they could have done, for Stokoe was the kind of man who in a case such as this would willingly have knocked a hole in each one of them. In those days people were not very squeamish, and Stokoe seems to have gone quietly back to bed without greatly troubling himself about the slain robber; but the man's friends must have stolen back during the night, for in a copse near by, in a shallow grave hastily scooped out of the frozen ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... That honour's very squeamish That takes a basting for a blemish; For what's more hon'rable than scars, Or skin to tatters rent in wars? 220 Some have been beaten till they know What wood a cudgel's of by th' blow; Some kick'd until they can feel whether A shoe ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... gently embrace them, and bid them follow the steps of holy women of old. Indeed he had quite got over the morbid terror he once felt for these guardians of the Divine humanity, for he used often to say to them, "Almighty God has deserved indeed to be loved by the feminine sex. He was not squeamish of being born of a woman. Yea, and he has granted hereby a magnificent and right worthy privilege to all women folk. For when it is not allowed to man to be or to be named the Father of God, yet this has been bestowed upon the woman to be the parent of God." The traces of his work at the other ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... has another three full Moons beguil'd, But that his forward Spouse has prov'd with Child, And now begins the drugery of Life, Lo! the vast Comforts of a Breeding Wife, Now she's grown Squeamish, such ado is kept, She e'en as peevish as an Ape new whipt, She pukes and whines, do's nothing but complain, And vows she'll never know the like again; But 'tis as Children promise to be good, Only remember'd while they feel the Rod. And now the look'd ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... topic, Lyons appended an expression indicative of his own early attitude. "The domestic slavery of the South is a bitter pill which it will be hard enough to get the English to swallow. But if the Slave Trade is to be added to the dose, the least squeamish ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... to food they were certainly not particular or squeamish. They loved best of all whales' blubber, or to drink the fishy-tasting oil from bodies of whales, seals, or walruses. Besides the meat of Polar bears and of any fur animals they could catch, or the musky beef of the musk ox, they devoured ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... the outcome of all these stirring events I have ended as a mere bookkeeper is perhaps a good reason why one paragraph will be enough. In my youth I had dreams a-plenty; but the event and the peculiar twist of my own temperament prevented their fulfilment. Perhaps in a more squeamish age—and yet that is not fair, either, to the men whose destinies I am trying to record. Suffice it then that of these men I have been the friend and companion, of these occasions I have been a part, and that the very lacks and reservations of my own character that have kept me to a subordinate ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... familiarity that so frequently renders the marriage state unhappy. Why in the name of decency are sisters, female intimates, or ladies and their waiting women, to be so grossly familiar as to forget the respect which one human creature owes to another? That squeamish delicacy which shrinks from the most disgusting offices when affection or humanity lead us to watch at a sick pillow, is despicable. But, why women in health should be more familiar with each other than men are, when they boast of their superiour delicacy, is a solecism ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... about, but because some circumstance that has happened to himself is the best possible illustration of the subject, and he is not the man to shrink from giving the best possible illustration of the subject from a squeamish delicacy. He likes both himself and his subject too well. He does not put himself before it, and say, 'Admire me first,' but places us in the same situation with himself, and makes us see all that he does. There is no blindman's-buff, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... I am not squeamish. I have always let my children read what they would. I have never made a mystery of the relations of the sexes, for I know the call of the unseen—the fascination lent by concealment, of discovery. I believe frankness to be a good thing. A mind that is startled or ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... had a dislike of shooting, from a sentiment as to the cruelty of the sport. "I was never quite at ease when I had knocked down my blackcock, and going to pick him up he cast back his dying eye with a look of reproach. I don't affect to be more squeamish than my neighbours, but I am not ashamed to say that no practice ever reconciled me fully to the cruelty of the affair. At all events, now that I can do as I like without fear of ridicule, I take more pleasure in seeing the birds fly past me unharmed." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... such lawless people with the delicacy belonging to his timid and retiring nature, but it must be owned that Mr. Clive was by no means so squeamish. He did not know, in the first place, the mystery of their iniquities; and his sunny kindly spirit, undimmed by any of the cares which clouded it subsequently, was disposed to shine upon all people alike. The world was welcome to him: the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "I'm not squeamish, sir," said Miss Augusta; "but it's dreadful to be shut up with a man who has no clothes on him. Let me ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... prude I had no idea that you would take it so seriously but Aunt Emma was so disappointed and spoke of the rejected suitor in such glowing terms, and said that you had sacrificed a splendid opportunity because of some squeamish notions on the subject of temperance, and so of course, my dear cousin, it was just like me to let my curiosity overstep the bounds of prudence, and inquire why you rejected ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... contrast elsewhere quoted "Merimee etait gentilhomme; Sainte-Beuve ne l'etait pas," was likely to make its unfavourable side specially felt in this connection. He seems to have disgusted even the Princess Mathilde, one of the staunchest of friends and certainly not the most squeamish or prudish of women. Nor, in another matter, can I approve his favourite mixture of rum and curacao as a liqueur. I gave it a patient trial once, thinking it might be critically inspiring. But the rum muddles the curacao, and the curacao does not ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... of the truly rich are past finding out. After a man has attained a fortune sufficient to keep him in yachts and automobiles, one would think he could afford to indulge himself in the luxury of being squeamish; that as to where he obtained any further increase of wealth, he would prefer to ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... acted under orders and against their own judgment of what was sensible and sound in fighting-risks I do not know. General Trenchard, their supreme chief, believed in an aggressive policy at all costs, and was a Napoleon in this war of the skies, intolerant of timidity, not squeamish of heavy losses if the balance were tipped against the enemy. Some young flying-men complained to me bitterly that they were expected to fly or die over the German lines, whatever the weather or whatever ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... with a tray; a lady what was squeamish had been having her vittles on deck. Mr. Clive cotched up a basin o' pea soup what was too greasy for madam, and in a twink he sets it upside down on the cadet's head. Ay, 'twas a pretty pictur', the greasy yellow stuff runnin' down over his powdered hair an' lace collar an' fine blue coat. My eye! ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... a tramping in the bushes, and in breaks my little gray mule. Thinks I them 'Rapahoes ain't smart; so tied her to grass. But the Injuns had scared the beaver so, I stays in my camp, eating my lariat. Then I begun to get kind o' wolfish and squeamish; something was gnawing and pulling at my inwards, like a wolf in a trap. Just then an idea struck me, that I had been there before trading liquor with ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... is that you're getting old and fat. What?" He glanced over his cigar at Matthews, who was regarding the trickle of the water beside them. "Those Russians, they are younger," he went on. "They have still to be reckoned with. And they aren't so squeamish, either in novels or in life. Look at what they have done in their 'sphere.' They have roads, they have Cossacks, they have the Shah under their thumb. And whenever they choose they shut the Baghdad train against your caravans—yours, with whom they have an understanding! ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... selfish pig of a Bulky, as Monsieur says, has no charity. He drives clean, wholesome smoke out of the hotel, and stinks the place up with as nasty a chemical mixture as disgusting science ever invented. He reminds me of a Toronto professor of anatomy who wouldn't allow the poor squeamish medicals to smoke in the dissecting room, because, he said, one bad smell was better than two. If I had my way with Bulky I'd smoke him blue in the face, if for nothing but to drown his ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... be squeamish," Tish said loftily. "I'm neutral; of course; but Great Britain has had this war forced on her and I'm going to see that she has a fair show. I've ordered all my stockings from the same shop in London, for twenty years, ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... honour. It seizes his failing limbs, chokes his panting utterance, and numbs his nimble wit. When a cough is taken, when the skin itches with the scab, and the teeth are numb and hollow, and the stomach turns squeamish,—then old age banishes the grace of youth, covers the complexion with decay, and sows many a wrinkle in the dusky skin. Old age crushes noble arts, brings down the memorials of men of old, and scorches ancient glories up; shatters wealth, hungrily gnaws away the worth ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... you my apples, fellows, seeing that you were too lazy to climb and get them for yourselves? None of you ever gave me anything when I was hungry, after the sack of Caen, in which my master, being squeamish, would take no part. Therefore I went to bed supperless, because, as I remember you said, I had not earned it. Still, as I don't want to fight the French with a bellyache, go scramble ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... in any country but Spain. Above a wood-fire, which burned black and smouldering in the strong daylight, a large iron kettle was suspended, emitting an odour that would infallibly have turned the stomachs of more squeamish or less hungry persons than those for whom its contents were destined. It would have required an expert chemist to analyse the ingredients of this caldron, of which the attendant Hecate was a barefooted, grimy-visaged drummer-boy, who, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of American ways, was entirely recognizable. Albeit Miss Lee, having spent much time in the mixed society of various European watering-places, was not by any means an unsophisticated young person, and was not at all a squeamish one, she was sensibly relieved by finding that the chair next to hers was occupied by a silvery-haired old lady of the most unquestionable respectability; and her composure was further restored, presently, by the return to his chair, on the ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... not in the least squeamish about telling us that Tippoo Tib had surely buried huge quantities of ivory, and had caused to be slain afterward every one ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... from squeamish scruples to do what Irons asked when to meet the consequences of the latter's anger would not only be supremely disagreeable but contrary to ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... which were unknown to Solomon in all his glory. Where would have been the great English nation, if the adventurous cut-throats who followed Norman William from Saint Valery to Hastings had been troubled with squeamish notions about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... the text to the blessing—liking the afternoon service best, because the prayers were the shortest, and not ashamed to say so; for he had an easy, jolly conscience, broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a great deal of beer or port wine—not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure; he fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners and slept the sleep of the irresponsible; for had he not kept up his charter by going to church on the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... squeamish inside, though most of that was due to his innate abhorrence of anything that brought up the subject of death. As far as the Monk was concerned, he had found in the letter thrust into the cleft stick and now reposing in a pigeonhole of his desk the reason back of that ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... white wolfish teeth between her blood-red lips, when she noticed the horrified expression which had appeared on Mathieu's face since Gaude had been spoken of. "Ah!" said she; "there's a man, now, who in nowise resembles your squeamish Dr. Boutan, who is always prattling about the birth-rate. I can't understand why Constance keeps to that old-fashioned booby, holding the views she does. She is quite right, you know, in her opinions. I ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... to destroy in their minds the intrinsic value of modesty. Yet this is usually the lesson taught them. As a natural consequence, women are free and confidential with each other to a fault, and foolishly prudent and squeamish with men. They are never for a moment unconscious of the difference of sex, and, in affecting the semblance of modesty, the true virtue escapes them altogether. In their neglect of what is for what seems, they lose the ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... those paid for by loan-sharks, clairvoyants, medical quacks, and the votaries of vice. The New York "Herald" has recently stopped printing its vicious personals. It also refuses fortune-tellers the hospitality of its columns, though it is not so squeamish in regard to loan-agencies and patent medicines. How many papers still publish the advertisement of Mrs. Laudanum's soothing syrup for babies? When you remember that the proprietary medicine concerns ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... been agreed that we were to start off next morning by the 7.10 train, and half an hour before that time saw me standing before the Columbus statue in the Piazza Acquaverdi. Weems was such a mighty squeamish little creature about the proprieties that I thought an old dunnage-sack would scandalize him, and so had purchased a drab portmanteau for my kit at the cost of half my remaining capital. I intended to have no more breezes with him if ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... not so squeamish as you thin-blooded moderns, or at least as you pretend to be!' He placed his finger on the Minister's breast, and drew back a little, the better to enjoy the approbation he expected to read in the other's face. 'We will say that the girl fell ill, ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... it is not an easy matter to say where the line, in conformity with good sense and good taste, should be actually drawn. I confess a leaning to the American school, but how far I am influenced by education it would not be easy for me to say myself. Foreigners affirm that we are squeamish, and that we wound delicacy oftener by the awkward attempts to protect it, than if we had more simplicity. There may be some truth in this, for though cherishing the notions of my youth, I never belonged to the ultra school at home, which, I believe you ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... than Florine; why should I not profit by her fancy, when the greatest nobles buy a night with such women with their richest treasures? When ambassadors set foot in these depths, they fling aside all thought of yesterday or to-morrow. I should be a fool to be more squeamish than princes, especially as I ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... Keeler, "he wan't quite so outspoken, to be sure; but he came around to it in the course of a month or two, and kind o' beat around the bush then, and wanted to know what I thought on't, and—wall, I told him 'yes,'—I didn't see no use in bein' squeamish so long as I'd once made ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... home pasture and started out on a rampage. I just grabbed the fust job that come along, good, bad, or indifferent—always kept doing something. You can look for a bird in the bush quite well when you've got one in the hand as when you hain't. To be sure I wasn't as squeamish as you are. I'd jumped at the offer you had this afternoon; but I reckon I'd taken toll too often to be very profitable. But in this way I always kept a-goin'—never got down underfoot so the stronger ones could tread on me. When it comes to that, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... to add that there is not the faintest trace in the play of the idea occasionally met with, and to some extent embodied in Madame Bernhardt's impersonation of Lady Macbeth, that her hold upon her husband lay in seductive attractions deliberately exercised. Shakespeare was not unskilled or squeamish ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... outward and visible sign of power. All these families were made up of persons who preserved a high tradition of courtesy, of true graciousness of life, of refined speech, with a family pride, and a squeamish sense of noblesse oblige which suited well with the kind of life they led; a life wholly filled with occupations which become contemptible so soon as they cease to be accessories and take the chief ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... squeamish," Pierre said in a rough voice. "She would come with us, thinking she could pick up a trinket or two; but, ma foi, it is hot down there, and she turned sick. So we ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... brigantine's equipment, rather than attending to the object which so much attracted the looks of his companions. "The night air has taut'ned the cordage of that flying-jib-boom, fellows, until it begins to lift its nose like a squeamish cockney, when he holds it over salt-water! See to it, and bring the spar in line; else shall we have a reproof from the sorceress, who little likes to have any of her limbs deranged. Here, gentlemen, the opinions of the lady may be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... thing. And he said it was a chance in a thousand, as all the camps were so orderly now, not as in Bret Harte, or as it was in his young days. And he said both Octavia and I would make splendid miners' wives not to be squeamish or silly over the "carrion" that was shot, and not to have trembling nerves today. We felt so pleased, and only that underneath I can't help being sad about Nelson, we should all have been very gay. It was about nine o'clock when we reached the car and Marcus Aurelius's welcoming ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... shouted Frederick the Great. "Yes," say our Utopians, "let us live forever, and raise our level gradually." The best thing about our "inferiors" to-day is that they are as tough as nails, and physically and morally almost as insensitive. Utopianism would see them soft and squeamish, while militarism would keep their callousness, but transfigure it into a meritorious characteristic, needed by "the service," and redeemed by that from the suspicion of inferiority. All the qualities ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... youngsters lie out in the topsail-yards, and hand the canvas in fine style, ay, and black down the rigging at times too. By Jove, he's the fellow to make your kid-glove-wearing gentlemen dip their hands in the tar-bucket, and keep them there, if he sees they are in any way squeamish about it." ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... footpad who attacked you last night was merely a prologue. I happen to know your cousin has entrusted the affair to Heinrich Obendorf, his foster-brother, who, as you will remember, is not particularly squeamish." ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... bass. He was the monarch of the Prado in winter: in summer of the Chaumiere and Mont Parnasse. Not a frequenter of those fashionable places of entertainment showed a more amiable laisser-aller in the dance—that peculiar dance at which gendarmes think proper to blush, and which squeamish society has banished from her salons. In a word, Harmodius was the prince of mauvais sujets, a youth with all the accomplishments of Goettingen and Jena, and all the eminent ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pursuit and prosecution of some points of truth, and this is the clamour of all men, who will show us our light? Who will discover some new thing unto us? But in the mean time we do not prove the unquestionable acceptable will of our God; like a fastidious squeamish stomach, that loathes what it receives, and always longs for something else. Thus the evil is vented here. Who is a wise man, do ye think? Not he who knows many things, who hath still a will to controversy, who hath attained some ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to the public utilities crib! And I'm going to show folks that they'll be eating poison-ivy out of the Morrison crib—even if I have to put the poison-ivy in there myself. This is no time to be squeamish, Blanchard! You've got to do your part in nailing a disturber like Morrison to the cross. Speak like a business man and say that he is dangerous in good business. We've got a Governor who is safe; we've got to have a legislature ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... was the quick answer. "But, as a matter of fact these East Indians are often carriers of bubonic plague, you know, and it's very contagious. Of course neither Shere Ali nor Singa Phut may have had the germs about them, but I am a bit squeamish when it comes to contagious diseases of that nature, and I wouldn't like to scratch myself on ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... what the devil has come over you,' cried Toussac, turning suspicious eyes upon my protector. 'I never knew you squeamish before, and certainly you were not backward in the affair of the man from Bow Street. This fellow has our secret, and he must either die, or we shall see him at our trial. What is the sense of arranging ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the proverb. And to Richard Calmady, his not wholly legitimate experience of the next hour was sweet indeed. For there remains rich harvest of poetry in all sport worth the name, let squeamish and sentimental persons declaim against it as they may. Strength and endurance, disregard of suffering have a permanent appeal and value, even in their coarsest manifestations. No doubt the noble gentlemen ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... be so darned squeamish about where a man gets his money these days, Lyd. Of course, there was no excuse for the Last Chance. But Dave's done what ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... with them. It should be noted, too, that at a period of University history when casual excess in drink was no reproach, but rather the contrary, Charles Dilke, living with boating men in a college where people were not squeamish, drank no wine. Judge Steavenson adds that the dislike of coarse talk which was marked with him later was equally evident in ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... he had committed. Presently the cook sent him the ragout, which he caused set before the lady, feigning himself disordered[255] that evening and commending the dish to her amain. The lady, who was nowise squeamish, tasted thereof and finding it good, ate it all; which when the knight saw, he said to her, 'Wife, how deem you of this dish?' 'In good sooth, my lord,' answered she, 'it liketh me exceedingly.' Whereupon, 'So God be mine aid,' quoth Roussillon; ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... particularly in those provinces, viz. Sicily and Asia, which paid their taxes in the form of tithe and not in a lump sum. The collection of these revenues could be made a very paying concern seeing that it was not necessary to be too squeamish about the rights and claims of the provincials. And, indeed, by the time of the Gracchi all these joint-stock companies had become the one favourite investment in which every one who had any capital, ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... "inured" to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave, which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years. Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as "scald-head," and that personal filthiness was ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... be trouble," Neddie wailed insistently, "and I ain't going over that rock. No, sir, not when I feel squeamish like I do now." ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... to dispose of Live Teeth may apply to Templeman." Or this from the Connecticut Courant of August 17, 1795: "A generous price paid for Human Front Teeth perfectly sound, by Dr. Skinner." These "live teeth" were inserted in other and vainer, if not more squeamish persons' mouths, by a process of "in-grafting" which was much in vogue. There were few New England dentists eo nomine until well into this century—but three in Boston in 1816. As silversmith and engraver Revere also set teeth, so Isaac Greenwood, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... matter that our public companies, and especially our railway companies, are doing their best to degrade our language. I am not going to be squeamish and object strongly to the use of the word Metropolitan, though I think it indefensible. Still, it is too bad of them to persist in using the word bye-laws for by-laws—so establishing solidly a shocking error. The word bye has no existence in England except as short for be with you, in ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... Nick was feeling rather squeamish. The swell rolled the narrow boat more than had been the case when they kept further out; and besides, such were his fears that they affected his ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... caught aright, who said that he represented a syndicate, which was a thing for which Dick had not the least reverence. The injustice of the proceedings did not much move him; he had seen the strong hand prevail too often in other places to be squeamish over the moral aspects of right ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... They probably knew that the ancient chalices, reliquaries, and that sort of thing would fetch big prices, sold privately to collectors—especially to American collectors, who, as everybody knows, are not at all squeamish or particular about the antecedents of property so long as they secure it. I should say that Baxter, acting for his partner in crime, stored these things, and has waited for a favourable opportunity to resume possession of them. I incline to the opinion ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... voice choked by the weight of O'olo on his chest, and troubled by the imminence of death; offering first ten cans of biscuit, and then twenty, and then property and fine mats in quantities unstinted. But O'olo, although it was like a beautiful dream come true, dallied with the killing, being squeamish in regard to it, and needing a space to confirm his resolution, he saying with derision: "Thou pig-faced person, thou hast not the property thou namest, and even wert thou the Lord of the earth, yet still would I take thy head!" To which the fallen ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... of self-interest in his friendship, and he was careful not to have it appear that there was. He never initiated me into the details of his speculations, lest I should offer him a loan. He was quite squeamish about it ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... there were amazing scenes. The democrats were crazy for blood; William shrank with horror against fighting his beloved Berliners. But this son, the future William I, who twenty-four years later was to gain the imperial German crown, was not so squeamish. The young prince gained the popular title "Cartridge-box prince," equivalent to saying that he was willing to blaze away at "beloved Berliners," or at any other citizens insane with political excitements hazardous ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... Von Anspach had "seen to it," prodigally. And "Oh, well!" I thought; "if everybody else is so extravagantly pleased, what in heaven's name is the use of my being squeamish? Besides, she is only doing what I am doing, and getting all the pleasure out of life that is possible. She and I are very sensible people. At least, I suppose we are. I wonder, though? Meanwhile, I had better go and look for that preposterously beautiful Elena. ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... charge of a cross-grained, superannuated sergeant and his wife; of whom the one was partially deaf and the other totally. Also the regulars had marched out but three days before, and the apartments—the dormitories especially—were not in a condition to propitiate the squeamish. Also No. 17 Company of the Royal Artillery had included a notable proportion of absent-minded gunners who, in the words of a latter-day bard, had left a lot of little things behind them. Lieutenant Clogg, on being introduced to his quarters, openly and with excuse bewailed the trouble ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with pestilential vapours, baffles words in which to describe it. To be sure, persons in daily life were used to conditions which would now be condemned as hopelessly insanitary, and were not so susceptible and squeamish as we have since become. The ordinary state of some of the poorer students' halls in Oxford appears to us as simply disgusting; yet the thing was accepted then ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... care of myself. I always could. And you—well, you know as well as I do what sort of a scrap that—that woods-rat can put up, or you ought to. He gave you a sort of a demonstration, once, if I remember correctly. I stick! I never was overly squeamish. But don't fool yourself, Archie, don't fool yourself. If we light, we're fighting with a regular guy, your insinuation to the contrary. I merely wanted you to realize what I know now. We'll think we've been in a battle before ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... concentrate a day. If you use echinacea, then chaparral probably isn't necessary and visa versa. Red clover is another blood cleanser, perhaps a little less effective but it has a pleasant, sweet taste and may be better accepted by the squeamish. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... glowed like a firebrand, and his eyes sparkled with wrath, as he loudly exclaimed, "What difference does it make to you, you ungrateful cur, whether the account is true or false, so long as you get your money? Bring none of your squeamish objections here. Either take the account as I have made it out, and swear to it, without flinching, or"—and here he swore an oath too revolting to transcribe "not a cent of money ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... their right names and save breath, as long as we're alone? I'm not squeamish. But to get down to business. You know Seaton, of our division, of course. He has been recovering the various rare metals from all the residues that have accumulated in the Bureau for years. After separating out all the known metals he had something ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... full glare of noon. Birds do not feed on them, owing to the disagreeable odour, resembling that of phosphorus, they emit, and probably because they are to be uneatable; but their insect enemies are not so squeamish, and devour them readily, just as they also do the blister-fly, which one would imagine a morsel fitted to disagree with any stomach. One of their enemies is the Monedula wasp; another, a fly, of the rapacious Asilidas family; and ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Philip had a squeamish appetite, and the thick slabs of poor butter on the bread turned his stomach, but he saw other boys scraping it off and followed their example. They all had potted meats and such like, which they had brought in ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... into a perverse relation to nature. There is ample evidence of this. "There is one convention so ancient, so necessary, so universal," writes Mr. Frederic Harrison (Nineteenth Century and After, Aug., 1907), "that its deliberate defiance to-day may arouse the bile of the least squeamish of men and should make women withdraw at once." If boys and girls were brought up at their mother's knees in familiarity with pictures of beautiful and natural nakedness, it would be impossible for anyone to write such silly and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Long Tom, "look alive. We've got to get the hold ready against cap'n gets back with the first batch. We're rid of the squeamish ones, I reckon. 'Fore they come in with their meat we'll be loaded; that is, s'posin' ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... etc., to keep repeating, etc. jefe del despacho, manager llevarse bien, to get on well together lograr, to contrive, to attain machacar, to hammer, to insist mandato, order, injunction melindroso, squeamish, very particular multa, fine, penalty Noruego, Norwegian peligro, danger remolcar, to tow sacar en limpio, to make out isanto y bueno! that is all very well sargento, sergeant transportar, to transport, to convey tul bordado, embroidered tulle vender gato ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... of his carrying her. He slipped in the middle of the brook and nearly fell with her. Allie squealed. The sound filled Neale with glee. After all, and whatever she had gone through, she was feminine—she was a girl—she was squeamish. Thereupon he slipped purposely and made a heroic effort to save himself. She clasped his neck convulsively with her free arm, and as he recovered his balance her head bumped into his and her hair got into his eyes. He laughed. This ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... be squeamish. You think I'm butting into what doesn't concern me; but I'm not. What concerns Billy does concern me. And if he doesn't make her ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... starve, at any rate," he remarked, grimly. "The idea of eating rats is horrid, of course, but I don't know why it should be. Certainly many persons have eaten them, and in an emergency I don't know why I should be any more squeamish ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... talk of here, a sailing on dry land with a good glass of wine before you; but you'd find it another guess sort of business, knocking about among the icebergs with your beard frozen fast to your ruff, Sir Philip, specially if you were a bit squeamish about the stomach." ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... squeamish," he said. "It comes of the long Peace. I've sent word to Costello. I suppose I'll have to appear at the inquest. They say a wise man never found a dead man. No one would accuse ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... went on a New York paper. Maybe it was the wrong paper; at least, I wasn't fit for it. There was something in the side of life I saw, too, not only on the paper, that made me heart-sick; and then the rush and fight and scramble to be first, to beat the other man. Probably I am too squeamish. I saw classmates and college friends diving into it, bound to come out ahead, dear old, honest, frank fellows, who had been so happy-go-lucky and kind and gay, growing too busy to meet and be ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... of each member of the colony; when they came and how often they have gone away, and the Lord help you if your residence isn't right! That's the one thing that the Judge is squeamish about, and as Mrs. Judge keeps tab for him, there is no use trying to fudge. If you don't come up before the Judge in six months and one week, she inquires of your landlady the reason for your delay. And of course the landlady knows the reason, even if you don't yourself. ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... not so squeamish, but help me to arrange everything properly, and you shall see that what you reject with such symptoms of disgust will soon complete your felicity. Let us get ready the pile for the sacrifice of to-night, and think not of eating till that is performed. Know you not that all solemn ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... an' left. He's not far," said Dale, as he stooped to lift the head of the deer. "Warm! Neck broken. See the lion's teeth an' claw marks.... It's a doe. Look here. Don't be squeamish, girls. This is only an hourly incident of everyday life in the forest. See where the lion has rolled the skin down as neat as I could do it, an' he'd just begun to bite in there when he ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... the only existing copy. As a matter of fact, the manuscript was not published until 1830, when all the people concerned had long been reduced to dust. There are five or six pages, Diderot said to Mdlle. Voland, which would make your sister's hair stand on end. A man may be much less squeamish than Mdlle. Voland's sister, and still pronounce the imaginative invention of D'Alembert's Dream, and the sequel, to be as odious as anything since the freaks of filthy Diogenes in his tub. Two remarks ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... man useful!" he reflected. "There is an element of danger in the boy's presence in New York; but it will go hard if I can't get rid of him! Tim Bolton is unexpectedly squeamish, but there are others to whom I can apply. With gold everything is possible. It's time matters came to a finish. My uncle's health is rapidly failing— the doctor hints that he has heart disease—and the fortune for which I have ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... my Lord, the Invincible, Philip of Spain Demands from England. Kneel down, Master Drake, Kneel down; for now have I this gilded sword Wherewith to strike it off. Nay, thou my lord Ambassador of France, since I be woman, And squeamish at the sight of blood, give thou The accolade." With that jest she gave the hilt (Thus, even in boldness, playing a crafty part, And dangling France before the adventurous deed) To Marchaumont: and in the face of Europe, With that huge fleet in Cadiz and the whole World-power of Spain crouching ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... New Republic will not be squeamish, either, in facing or inflicting death, because they will have a fuller sense of the possibilities of life than we possess. They will have an ideal that will make killing worth the while; like Abraham, they ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... skillful pilots, by reason of numerous rocks, shelves, and whirlpools. These have received sundry appellations, such as the Gridiron, Frying-pan, Hog's Back, Pot, etc., and are very violent and turbulent at certain times of tide. Certain mealy-mouthed men, of squeamish consciences, who are loth to give the devil his due, have softened the above characteristic name into Hell-gate, forsooth! Let those take care how they venture into the Gate, or they may be hurled into the Pot before they are aware of it. The name of this ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... are now ashamed to admit that punishment is based on vengeance and, for that reason, various excuses and apologies have been offered for the cruelty that goes with it. Some of the more humane, or "squeamish," who still believe in punishment, contend that the object of this infliction is the reformation of the victim. This, of course, cannot be urged of the death penalty or even punishment for life, or for very long-term sentences. In these cases there is neither inducement to reform nor ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... had to be saved once more from the rule of the "rebels with the President at their head" spread with fearful rapidity, and well-meaning people looking to Congress to come to the rescue were becoming less and less squeamish as to the character of the means to be used to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... admire the energy with which he flings his wood-blocks at all who side against her. Canning, Castlereagh, Bexley, Sidmouth, he is at them, one and all; and as for the Prince, up to what a whipping-post of ridicule did he tie that unfortunate old man! And do not let squeamish Tories cry out about disloyalty; if the crown does wrong, the crown must be corrected by the nation, out of respect, of course, for the crown. In those days, and by those people who so bitterly attacked the ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... all about that," said Halliday. "You were squeamish about something or other he wanted it for. Well, the watch belonged to you, I suppose, and you aren't obliged to lend it to anybody. What on earth do you want to go worrying about ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... country. To his unimaginative mind there was sufficient justification in that attitude. As for the ease with which he planned to kill and cover his killing under the semblance of accident, he would have said, if you could make him speak of it, that he was not squeamish. They'd all have to ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... have often shut my eyes upon certain affairs—. Enough; they must now testify their attachment for me. Why should they oppose the presentation of the comtesse? <Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!> they were not so squeamish in the days of madame de Pompadour." At these latter words I could not forbear laughing. La Vauguyon and de Richelieu left us and here the conversation terminated. The next morning they brought me a note from the duc de la Vauguyon. Thus it ran:— MADAME,—Ready to serve ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... said, "I'm not squeamish. But I'm cursed if I like to hear a man who may die any time between bottles ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... would have thought twice about a kiss, or a dozen of them. One of their own number who had made a fuss about such a trifle would have been laughed at. But somehow they did not feel inclined to laugh at Desire's terror and repugnance. They felt that she was different from them, and the least squeamish hoyden of the lot experienced a thrill of sympathy, and had a sense of something tragic. And yet no one interfered. Hubbard was but using his rights according to the ancient rules of the game. A girl might defend herself with fists and nails from ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... the settlement that would touch her, so I done it, and of all the corpses I ever put away she had the grandest look. It sorter staggered me till I thought at last it was maybe the rest that come to her after the pain of sinnin' had gone out of her body. But you'll not be so squeamish about the way folks look when they air dead after a while. We had one pastor's wife that helped lay out fourteen bodies. But that was the year of the epidemic," she concluded, leaning over to stretch the shroud sheet. Little did I think then that I was already upon the eve of an experience that ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... squar' a little woman as ever lived) inter gittin' Danbury outer th' city, an' now thet the fight is won fer 'em, an' now thet th' boys we brought is about ter raise hell (as they certainly is), Otaballo ain't goneter be squeamish 'bout removin' quiet like and safe everyone who bothers him. In three days we might not be able to git out long 'nuff to git tergether an outfit er ask any questions. There's a whole lot 'bout thet map o' yourn thet we ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... no very particular reason why you should be invited to read The Love Story of Guillaume-Marc (HUTCHINSON) it is, I vouch, a vivid enough tale of its genre. Squeamish folk, perhaps, may think that this is not the most opportune time at which to draw attention to the blood-lust that was so marked a feature of the French Revolution. But, granted that you do not suffer from squeams, you will find Miss MARIAN BOWER a deft weaver of romance. Here love ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... hundred yards' range. As the shrapnel burst, the front squadrons seemed to stumble and fall. The ranks were so near that the change from living human beings into mangled pieces of flesh and rags could clearly be seen. More than one veteran gunner felt squeamish at the sight. But the rear squadrons, though their horses' hoofs were squelching in the blood of their comrades of a moment before, never blenched or faltered but swept on at a thundering gallop. Again the guns spoke, and again. That was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... to conduct yourself like one, as our German friend does. Or if you are a prize-fighter, you ought to be a human bulldog. There's no such thing as a gentlemanly pugilist, any more than there can be a virtuous burglar. And if you're a South American Dictator, you can't afford to be squeamish about throwing your enemies into jail or shooting them for treason. The way to dictate is to dictate,—not to hide indoors all day while your ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... was so hideous, as he spoke in his demoniacal air of triumph over those that were less afflicted than himself, that Peyrolles, who was not at all squeamish, shuddered uncomfortably. AEsop seemed for a while to be absorbed in soothing memories, but presently he made an end of rubbing his hands together silently, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... often at the performer than at the performance. But most even of these will repay a visit, if not for the sake of the actors, for that of the audience. Despised by the fashionable and pleasure-seeking, they afford a rich field to the observant man. He must not, it is true, be squeamish, and fear to let the unsavoury reek of tabac-de-caporal, or the odours of potato brandy and logwood wine come betwixt the wind and his nobility. Neither must he dread contact with the mechanic's blouse, with the cotton gown of the grisette, or the velveteen vest of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... There is an unwritten code in force in this respect, every paragraph of which is made and provided to cover the individual needs of such impecunious officers. The matter is well understood throughout the land, and is looked upon as an established institution, something in which squeamish scruples are not allowed to interfere with concrete requirements. No German maiden consciously feels the shame of being thus made purely an object of barter and sale. She is to the manner bred. But of course good, fat dowries are ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... her understanding, he gratified her with a form of marriage, in which his brother Spencer, in clerical disguise, acted the part of a priest. It was even suggested that the bride in this mock marriage was the lawyer's ward. Never squeamish about the truth, when he could gain a point by falsehood, Swift endorsed the spiteful fabrication, and in the Examiner, pointing at Lord Cowper, wrote—"This gentleman, knowing that marriage fees were a considerable perquisite to the clergy, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... undressed to be taken home, for the Glasses and the Kitcheners of Katunga to try their culinary skill upon. Little balls of beef and mutton were also to be had, weighing about two ounces, but the stomach must not have been of the squeamish kind, which could ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... "Squeamish? Eh? You'll get over that, boy. I'll trap your trapper and spy your spy, and Nor'-Wester your H. B. C.! You come down to the sand between the forest and the beach in about an hour and I'll have news for you," and he brushed past me with his arms full of something ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut |
