"Distort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... amazing influence of the place, and now in the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted by the mind. The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to distort every indication: the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying boatman making signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed of its natural character, and revealed in something of its other aspect—as it existed across the border to that other region. And this changed aspect I ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... by a single stroke, he completely reversed the judgment of the English nation about their greatest man. The whole weight of Church, monarchy, aristocracy, fashion, literature, and wit had for two centuries combined to falsify history and distort the character of the noblest of English statesmen. And a simple man of letters, by one book, at once and for ever reversed this sentence, silenced the allied forces of calumny and rancour, and placed Oliver ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... which, if you are faithful, that same Satanic working, which, if it could, would burn your body, will assuredly assail you daily through the pens and tongues of deceivers and deceived, who, under a semblance of a zeal for Christ, will evermore distort your words, misrepresent your motives, rejoice in your failings, exaggerate your errors, and seek by every poisoned breath of slander to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... reflected heat from the society around it. We give back words of tepid greeting, without improvement. We talk to our fellows in the phrases we learn from them, which come to mean less and less as they grow worn with use. Then we exaggerate and distort, heaping epithet upon epithet in the endeavour to get a little warmth out of the smouldering pile. The quiet cynicism of our everyday demeanour is open and shameless, we callously anticipate objections ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... moral character is, necessarily, powerfully influenced by his wife. A lower nature will drag him down, as a higher will lift him up. The former will deaden his sympathies, dissipate his energies, and distort his life; while the latter, by satisfying his affections, will strengthen his moral nature, and by giving him repose, tend to energise his intellect. Not only so, but a woman of high principles will insensibly elevate the aims and purposes of her husband, as one of low principles will unconsciously ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of himself he said what he did not mean, or filled the picture with descriptions, situations or emotions, incongruous or inappropriate. And if in so reading they seem clear and connected, fanciful and far-drawn interpretations will not be adopted. We should not distort or modify their meaning in order to infer that they are imitations of Petrarch, or that the genius of the poet, cribbed and confined by the fashion of the time, forgot to soar, and limped and waddled in the footsteps of the inconspicuous sonneteers ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... required to show them how to throw a suspension bridge above the flood from tree to cliff. It was characteristic of the Regiment that they carried out in war their peace training, never allowing the atmosphere of excitement to distort their actions. ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... spirits now supplies With cordials in her hands and eyes, Now with a soft and silent tread Unheard she moves about my bed. I see her taste each nauseous draught And so obligingly am caught, I bless the hand from whence they came, Nor dare distort ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... John Adams was elected did not accurately reflect the existing state of party strength. The electoral college system, by its nature, was apt to distort the situation. Originally the electors voted for two persons without designating their preference for President. There was no inconvenience on that account while Washington was a candidate, since he was the first choice of all the electors; but in 1796, with Washington ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... the iron sash cramps are used to apply pressure to the joint. As this method is in some cases apt to bend and distort thin boards it is wise practice to fix (as a temporary measure) a stout piece of straight wood on to the board to be joined by using two handscrews as shown at the left hand of the illustration. At the right hand of the sketch a wooden cramping arrangement of the box type is given, ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... very slowly, as though aware of the necessity for haste and yet afraid to hasten. "Do what I say. Stay by my side, but do not touch me. I must be very quiet, but you must not go away." His jaw began to set and his face to quiver and distort with the fore- running pangs, but he gulped and struggled to master them. "Do not got away. And do not let Amos go away. Understand! Amos must stay ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... me that before I came the officers of the garrison assembled to consider whether or not they should recognize me. The unanimous vote was "yes." Was all this official? No. It is the white people, the disappointed tyrants of Georgia, who try to distort social courtesies in official ones. The "many white" people were some half-dozen newspaper reporters, whose articles doubtless were partly written when they came. "Old Si" in his spectacles ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Church is the most famous of Cyprian's works. As the theory there developed is opposed to that which became dominant, and as Cyprian was regarded as the great upholder of the Church's constitution, interpolations were early made in the text which seriously distort the sense. These interpolations are to-day abandoned by all scholars. The best critical edition of the works of Cyprian is by W. von Hartel in the CSEL, but critical texts of the following passage with references to literature and indication of interpolations may be found in Mirbt (Prot.), n. 52, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... and fever. There is pain in the swelling which is increased by movement of the jaws and by pressure. The degree of the swelling varies with the severity of the attack. It may be very little or it may be so great as to completely distort, and render unrecognizable, the face. It must be remembered that, though mumps is not regarded as an important or dangerous disease, it may ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... steel is necessary to aid, by its stiffness, in preventing the very ductile iron from giving back to such an extent as to distort the steel face and thus tear or separate the parts of the plate. The ductile iron gives a very low resisting power, its duty being to hold the steel face up to its work. If now we substitute a soft steel plate in the place of the ductile iron, we will get greater resisting power, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... from his empty stomach, a mist, a vapor, so to speak, which, spreading between objects and himself, permitted him to catch a glimpse of them only in the incoherent fog of nightmare,—in those shadows of dreams which distort every outline, agglomerating objects into unwieldy groups, dilating things into chimeras, and men into phantoms. Little by little, this hallucination was succeeded by a less bewildered and exaggerating view. Reality made its way to the light around him, struck his eyes, struck his feet, and demolished, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... opinion, conceit of excellence, a mean delight in recognizing inferiority in others, a meaner delight in refusing to recognize the superiority of others, all the honest and all the base forms of self-assertion, cloud and distort the vision when one mind directs its glance at another. For one person who is mentally conscientious there are thousands who are morally honest. The result is a vast massacre of character, which would move the observer's compassion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... too, may have the pleasure of helping young men. But beware how you do this, saying in your heart, "I will help this young man, and when he succeeds I will reap my reward." Such a selfish thought will utterly poison your advice, deflect your moral vision, distort ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... thee down; Hereinto let that evil land, with fresh Spring-water mixed, be trampled to the full; The moisture, mark you, will ooze all away, In big drops issuing through the osier-withes, But plainly will its taste the secret tell, And with a harsh twang ruefully distort The mouths of them that try it. Rich soil again We learn on this wise: tossed from hand to hand Yet cracks it never, but pitch-like, as we hold, Clings to the fingers. A land with moisture rife Breeds lustier herbage, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... to distort the features," he remarked, turning the head to one side in a way to make visible a ghastly wound in the back of the cranium. "Such a hole as that sends a man out of the world without much notice. The surgeon will ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... walked toward the house, revolving these disquieting conjectures, all his first suspicion and antagonism toward Wilhelm revived in full force, and he was in a mood well calculated to distort the simplest acts, when he suddenly saw sitting in the square stoop at the door the two persons who filled his thoughts, Wilhelm and Carlen,—Wilhelm steadily at work as usual at his carving, his eyes closely fixed ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... struggle, submit their reason to be swathed by all the absurd bandages of custom. What, though they cripple or distort their minds; are not these deformities beauties in the eyes of fashion? and are not these people the favoured nurselings of the World, secure of her smiles, her caresses, her fostering praise, her partial protection, through all the dangers of youth and ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... then there is only the other extreme of austere abnegation of self for any cause however trivial. Nature is the only guide and I don't believe Nature is bad. Of course the curse of freedom will allow one for a long time to distort and vilely modify natural instincts, but at least one can fly from the too palpable artificial. Dear Poodie, don't sigh. I only let off steam in words—that is safe. I am still a slave to this disgusting civilization and always your very devoted 'Perfect One', that is to be, ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... will abide to the end, Do what you will, distort your ways you may wend, Hardships and knocks but insure him your friend Shown by the ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... myself, is all undone." And though she was far from knowing this, that something was her country's civilisation, its very soul, the meaning of it all gentleness, balance. Her spirit, of that quality so little gross that it would never set up a mean or petty quarrel, make mountains out of mole-hills, distort proportion, or get images awry, had taken its stand unconsciously, no sooner than it must, no later than it ought, and from that stand would not recede. The issue had passed beyond mother love to that self-love, deepest of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... nothing, so long as my motives in coming are known. But people talk so cruelly, and will distort the facts so gladly, and we have always held our heads so high. And now the Penheim!" She ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... forme as his descendants call it now. To this great end all means were good: all that was not a means to this end was superfluous. To achieve it he was prepared to play the oddest tricks with natural forms—to distort. All great artists have distorted; Cezanne was peculiar only in doing so more consciously and thoroughly than most. What is important in his art is, of course, the beauty of his conceptions and his power in pursuit: indifference to verisimilitude is but the outward and visible ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... grasp.' She was terrible. At first, I had seen her as an angel of goodness. Now, although she had not changed, she was like an angel of mercilessness and vengeance. I saw a sort of hatred for those who would trouble him distort her face, resplendent with superhuman maternity. Her cruel heart was full of one heart only. It foresaw sin and shame. It hated men and settled accounts with them like a destroying angel. She was the mother with fearful nails, ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... love-making being wanting in conviction on account of her shaved head. At last Irala and his friends determined to send the Governor a prisoner to Spain, taking care, of course, to despatch a messenger beforehand to distort the facts and prejudice the King. The friends of Nunez, however, managed to secrete a box of papers, stating the true facts, on board the ship. At dead of night a band of harquebusiers dragged him from his bed (after a captivity of eleven months), as ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... you exaggerate, you distort; you forget so many things—the sentiments, the affections, the thousand details that hallow that crude foundation which you see ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... advance positive truths, they were useful in the method they created. They had no hostility to truth, as such; they only doubted whether it could be reached in the realm of psychological inquiries, and sought to apply knowledge to their own purposes, or rather to distort it in order to gain a case. They are not a class of men whom I admire, as I do the old sages they ridiculed, but they were not without their use in the development of philosophy. The Sophists also rendered a service ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... distort men's opinions on the so-called "silver question" is the belief that the gold supply of the present and near future need be considered merely as it may affect Europe and America. Asia and Africa are in most men's minds entirely excluded from the calculations. ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... justify itself verbally. Metempsychosis, heaven and hell, Christ's suffering for every sinner, are notions by which charity has often been guided and warmed. Like myth everywhere, these notions express judgments which they do not originate, although they may strengthen or distort them in giving them expression. The same myths, in cruel hands, become goads to fanaticism. That natural sensitiveness in which charity consists has many degrees and many inequalities; the spirit bloweth where it listeth. Incidental circumstances determine its phases and attachments ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... than her loveliness and ladylike conduct will command. Those who are most pleasing will receive the most attention, and those who desire more should aspire to acquire more by cultivating those graces and virtues which ennoble woman, but no lady should lower or distort her own true ideal, or smother and crucify her conscience, in order to please any living man. A good man will admire a good woman, and deceptions cannot long be concealed. Her show of dry goods or ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... a flattering thought. And if the paper wants me to falsify or suppress or distort, I have to do ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of insanity, unless indeed where the malady is silent and moping. The afflicted old man now discovered that his daughter's mind had, in addition to her disappointment, sunk under the frightful and merciless dogma, which we trust will soon cease to darken and distort the beneficent character of God. Indeed it might have been evident to him before that in looking upon herself as a castaway, Jane's sensitive spirit was gradually lapsing into the gloomy horrors of predestination. But this blindness of the father ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... who was a man of fine imagination, these stories retain much of their genuine character. Nor could even the tasteless Dionysius distort and mutilate them into mere prose. The poetry shines, in spite of him, through the dreary pedantry of his eleven books. It is discernible in the most tedious and in the most superficial modern works on the early times of Rome. It enlivens the dulness ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... up in Buck's own laboratory. On the bench was the powerful, but small, little projector of the straight magnetic field, simply a specially designed accumulator, a super-condenser, and the peculiar apparatus Devin had designed to distort the electric field through ninety degrees to a magnetic field. Behind this was a curious, paraboloid projector made up of hundreds of tiny, carefully orientated coils. This was Buck's own contribution. They were ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... blood. Take all the archeological facts of the last fifty years and read them up or down, across or diagonally, inside and out, and this fact rises into your mind like a Banquo that will not down. Historians may distort truth and rob the African race of its historical position, but facts are everywhere throwing open the secret closets of nations and exposing ethnic skeletons that laugh and jest at our racial vanities. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... assert that the mission of the poet is "to see life steadily and see it whole," a feat which is impossible if the worship of one figure out of the multitude is allowed to distort relative values, and to throw his view ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... visits; of strolls in the dusk of evenings on unfrequented streets; of little suppers after the opera; of all the small things that deviltry can suggest and malignity distort. Wickersham cared little for having his name associated with that of any one, and he was certainly not going to be more careful for another's name than for his own. He had grown more reckless since his return, but it had not ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... cut off his rear-guard, and otherwise roughly handled the Turkish troops. Upon this, Omer Pacha put him in chains, and would have shot him, as he richly deserved, had he not known that his enemies at Constantinople would not fail to distort the true features of the case. He therefore sent him to Constantinople, where he was shortly afterwards released, and employed his gold to such good purpose, that he was actually sent down as Civil Governor to Travnik, which he ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... village of the first century. Although they are still retained in the text by some editors, this is done to give some measure of continuity to an otherwise interrupted narrative, but they can only serve to distort the author and obscure whatever view of him the reader might otherwise have reached. They are generally printed between brackets or ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... undergo somewhat of strange alteration, which very nearly approaches to madness; they speak many things at an abrupt and incoherent rate, as if they were actuated by some possessing demon; they make an inarticulate noise, without any distinguishable sense or meaning; they sometimes screw and distort their faces to uncouth and antic looks; at one time beyond measure cheerful, then as immoderately sullen; now sobbing, then laughing, and soon after sighing, as if they were perfectly distracted, and out of their senses. If they have any sober ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... "I have been unjust. If I had other friends like you, who dared to tell me the truth as it is, and not distort it out of all recognition—if there were others here who dared to defy me when defiance alone will make me see things in their right light, Russia would be the better for it. Go to Zara d'Echeveria. Tell her that ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... world, and, as the occasion demands, boldly, and fearlessly, and categorically condemns and anathematises all who, through pride or cunning, or personal interest and ambition, or love of novelty, attempt to falsify or to minimise or to distort the teaching of Our Divine Master. Without respect of persons, without regard to temporal consequences, without either hesitancy or ambiguity, he speaks "as one having power" (Matt. vii. 29). And while, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... author more susceptible than he might have been some years since to that spirit of depreciation and hostility which it has been his misfortune to excite amongst the general contributors to the periodical press for the consciousness that every endeavor will be made to cavil, to distort, to misrepresent, and, in fine, if possible, to RUN DOWN, will occasionally haunt even the hours of composition, to check the inspiration, ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beautiful engraving of Albert Durer. A harnessed knight, with an oldish countenance, is riding upon his high steed, attended by his dog, through a fearful valley, where fragments of rock and roots of trees distort themselves into loathsome forms; and poisonous weeds rankle along the ground. Evil vermin are creeping along through them. Beside him Death is riding on a wasted pony; from behind the form of a devil stretches over its clawed arm toward him. Both horse and dog look strangely, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... was a dangerous exaltation; one that in a desert will distort the brain, and in the world where the idol dwells will put him, should he come nigh, to its own furnace-test, and get a clear brain out of a burnt heart. She was frequently at the Hall, helping to nurse Lady Patterne. Sir Willoughby had hitherto treated her as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sentinel—accuser—judge—and spy. 70 The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain, The envious who but breathe in other's pain— Behold the host! delighting to deprave, Who track the steps of Glory to the grave, Watch every fault that daring Genius owes Half to the ardour which its birth bestows, Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, And pile the Pyramid of Calumny! These are his portion—but if joined to these Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease, 80 If the high Spirit must forget to soar, And stoop to strive with Misery at ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... come the Faits Paris; then the Camarillists, other banditti commissioned to distort Parliamentary speeches; then the newspaper Politicians, who have not two ideas in their heads. If appointed under-officials, they would be unable to administer the sweeping of the streets. Consequently, the more incapable ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... intention of falsehood, seem incapable of speaking the truth. If they relate a circumstance that has passed under their own observation, or describe anything that they have seen, they add here and diminish there, distort this and give a new color to that, in such a manner that the hearer receives an impression of nothing as it really is. If there seem to be no malicious or evil design in all this, such persons are commonly called very imaginative; they should be called persons of unregulated, unprincipled ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... encouraged the efforts of Orange. They had, both privately and officially, urged the subject upon the attention of the Emperor, and had solicited his intercession with Philip. It was not an interposition to save the Prince from chastisement, however the artful pen of Granvelle might distort the facts. It was an address in behalf of religious liberty for the Netherlands, made by those who had achieved it in their own persons, and who were at last enjoying immunity from persecution. It was an appeal which they who made it were bound to make, for the Netherland commissioners ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... into that box, I put it to you, for the deliberate purpose of making the case against her as black as she could. In reality her evidence was strongly in the prisoner's favour, as I shall point out to you. But she, too, was instructed, or was taught by her own evil nature, to so distort the facts as to make them bear an appearance against the unhappy girl who is ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... match for the most learned infidel or sceptic that ever lived: though, to tell the truth, such men are generally very shallow and weak, as well as wicked; generally know only a little, pervert what they know, assume false principles, and distort or suppress facts: but were they as accomplished as the very author of evil, the humblest Christian, armed with sling and stone, and supported by God's unseen might, is, as far as his own faith is concerned, a match for them. And, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... of those to whom nothing can be stated so well but that they misunderstand and distort it, we must add a word, in case they can understand even that. There are very many persons who, when they hear of this liberty of faith, straightway turn it into an occasion of licence. They think that everything is now lawful for them, and do not choose to show themselves free men ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... always formed a part of her program of emancipation. Out of her revolt against its absurdities has come the most definite development in American costume which we have had, and that is the sensible street costume, which in spite of efforts to distort and displace it, a woman still may wear without differentiating herself from ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... condition inside houses, utensils kicking about, maids lolling about, no work going on, nothing to please the eye; and moreover such side glances, and stray shots as it were, distort the soul, and are unhandsome, and the practice is a pernicious one. When Diogenes saw Dioxippus, a victor at Olympia, driving up in his chariot and unable to take his eyes off a handsome woman who was watching ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... see these eyes— Yes, see the eyes, the body, neck, and form! God made them verily with master hand; 'Twas she herself the image did distort. Let us revere in her, then, God's own work, And not destroy what he so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... permanence. Free will is a glorious but a dangerous prerogative. All experience leads towards the belief that a human will may so distort itself as to grow incapable of good. Even a character not hardened into permanent evil may grow incapable of the highest good. A soul even forgiven through the mercy of God may "enter into life halt and maimed" like a consumptive patient cured ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... prepared to hear of long lists of places which should have been included, and also to hear criticisms on his choice of those appearing. It is to some extent natural that special familiarity with certain places and certain writers or heroes of the past may distort one's vision, and perhaps induce a choice of subjects which may not seem so comprehensive to some individuals as to others. Future editions will, however, give ample scope for embracing all the good suggestions which may ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... Classification of all departments of Human Knowledge, which occupies a portion of his treatise "On the Advancement of Learning." Imperfect and erroneous as his scheme may be allowed to be, D'Alembert and his coadjutors in the last century were able to do no more than to copy and distort it. In his "Novum Organum" he undertakes to supply certain deficiencies of the Aristotelian system of logic, and expounds his mode of philosophizing; he was the first to unfold the inductive method, which he did in so masterly a way, that he has earned, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... and speak a dialect connected with the Maori of New Zealand. I think that the people of Indeni (the native name for Santa Cruz) are also more than half Polynesians; but I don't know a single sentence of their language properly. I can say nothing about it. They destroy and distort their organs of pronunciation by excessive use of the betel-nut and pepper leaf and lime, so that no word is articulately pronounced. It is very hard to catch the sounds they make amidst the hubbub on deck or the crowds on shore; yet I think that if we had ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... linseed oil. Both compounds are then mixed together. Copal resin may be substituted for the amber, but it is not so durable. Oil varnish made from amber is highly elastic. If it is used to protect tin-plate printing, when the plates after stoving have been subsequently rolled so as to distort the letters, the varnish has in no way suffered, and its ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... have embittered the existence and partially crippled the powers of its creator. And so, to our modern imagination, the neglected and misunderstood genius has become the very type of the great artist, and we have allowed our belief in him to color and distort our vision of the history of art. We have come to look upon the great artists of all times as an unhappy race struggling against the inappreciation of a stupid public, starving in garrets and waiting ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... jokes. Boston will always be a joke to Chicago, the east to the west. The city girl in the country offers a perennial source of amusement, as does the country man in the city. And the foreigner we have always with us, to mix his Y's and J's, distort his H's, and play havoc with the Anglo-Saxon Th. Indeed our great American sense of humor has been explained as an outgrowth from the vast field of incongruities offered ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... troubled by the unpleasant suspicion that Muriel was their enemy, after all that had happened. He felt that they must guard their tongues, for there was no telling what expression the fellow might distort and turn against them. ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... face. "Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so you sleep well. Oh, yes! They, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... 67. Lawrence, 'Lectures on Physiology,' p. 337.) The Chinese have by nature unusually small feet (72. This fact was ascertained in the 'Reise der Novara: Anthropolog. Theil.' Dr. Weisbach, 1867, s. 265.); and it is well known that the women of the upper classes distort their feet to make them still smaller. Lastly, Humboldt thinks that the American Indians prefer colouring their bodies with red paint in order to exaggerate their natural tint; and until recently European women added to their ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... for evil without some fault on the part of somebody. Even though it may not have been expressed in exact terms, some false person has intentionally spread it abroad. And then a man in his wrath, when he hears the lie will distort it, and twist it, and aggravate it,—to his own wrong and ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... the two is itself composite and abounds in forms of speech that belong to one earlier still. For the N.T. Greek, even in the writings of Luke, contains a large number of Hebrew idioms; and a literal rendering into English cannot but partially veil, and in some degree distort, the true sense, even if it does not totally obscure it (and that too where perfect clearness should be attained, if possible), by this admixture of Hebrew as well as Greek forms ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... call him "a marquis," or "a privy councillor"—that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a shameful admiration, must, and, I think, does, constantly come in and distort and poison ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... be to encourage children to pray, to establish in them the habit of closing the day with quiet, grateful thoughts, to watch especially that the prayers learned in early life do not distort the child's thoughts of God, and to make the evening prayer an opportunity for the child to express his desires to God his Father and Friend. Having done this, as the children grow up it is best ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... influence among his fellows. His affection for us, too, is very great. Yet in the fashion of this new generation, which speaks without waiting to be addressed, and does not scruple to instruct on all subjects its elders, he will have it that he feared me when a lad—and with cause! If fancy can so distort impressions within such short span, it does not become me to be too set about events which come back slowly through the mist and darkness ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... storm; And all his armour in a haze of blue. He held no sword, bare was his hand and clenched, As if to hide the inextinguishable blood Murder had painted there. And his wild mouth Seemed spouting echoes of deluded thoughts. Around his head, like vipers all distort, His locks shook, heavy-laden, at each stride. If fire may burn invisible to the eye; O, if despair strive everlastingly; Then haunted here the creature of despair, Fanning and fanning flame to lick upon A soul still childish in a ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... Andalusian foot and ankle. These being her sole wealth, it was, perhaps, from economy of her charms that she hid the ankle in such flowing sables, that she bound the black locks straightly under a little widow's-cap, seldom parted the fine lips above the treasured pearls beneath, disdained to distort the classic features, and graved no wrinkles on the smooth, rich skin with any lavish smiling. She went about the house, a self-contained, silent, unpleasant little vial of wrath, and there was ever between her and Eloise a tacit feud, waiting, perhaps, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... only reflect one another and we ourselves do not become conscious of our powers until the day of the supreme love, as if, till then, we had only seen ourselves in pocket-mirrors which never reflect more than a morsel of our lives, a movement, a gesture ... and which always distort it!" ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... are right," I answered slowly, "they do just wring and distort them and deform them for life. But I intend to see that Nell's has no such torturous operation performed on it if I can appeal ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Board again mounted his invisible rostrum. "Do you mean to intimate that we are to falsify the record?" he declaimed. "To try to make liars out of hundreds of eyewitnesses? You ask us to distort the truth, to ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... purpose. The acts of Csar speak also the same language; and as these are less susceptible of a false coloring than the features of a general character, we find this poet of liberty, in the midst of one continuous effort to distort the truth, and to dress up two scenical heroes, forced by the mere necessities of history into a reluctant homage to Csar's supremacy of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... lovers. The drama even, in order to satisfy the prolixity of their nature, must take all tongues, pompous, inflated verse, loaded with imagery, and side by side with this vulgar prose; more than this, it must distort its natural style and limits, put songs, poetical devices in the discourse of courtiers and the speeches of statesmen; bring on the stage the fairy world of opera, as Middleton says, gnomes, nymphs of the land and sea, with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... give as to receive severe thrusts. As an illustration of the method of the discussion, we mention the title of a book written in favor of Cocceius: "Satan's Defense of himself, on being questioned why he had instigated some persons to distort and vilify the orthodox, wise, and edifying Writings of the Blessed Professor Cocceius, &c., &c." In this work Satan, on being questioned whom he fears most, replies that "no one has done more harm to the power of darkness than Cocceius,—not ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... is no friend to a house who calumniates the husband to the wife. Is it the part of a friend to distort dear Ernest's kindliness and gayety into ill morals; to pervert his love of poetry and plays into an unworthy attachment to actors and—oh!" and the tears would come. But she dried them, for now she hated this man; with all the little power of hatred she had, she detested him. "Do you suppose ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... power and extreme laxity of his ligaments, he simulated all the dislocations about the hip joint. Sometimes he produced actual dislocation, but usually he said he could so distort his muscles as to imitate in the closest degree the dislocations. He could imitate the various forms of talipes, in such a way as to deceive an expert. He dislocated nearly every joint in the body with great facility. It was said that he could contract at will both pillars ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... This was so grossly unjust that Elmore merely shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. When it finally appeared that he was not going to ask anything more, his wife added: "If you could listen, like any one else, and not interrupt with remarks that distort all one's ideas"—Then, as he persisted in his silence, she relented still further. "Why, of course, as you say, you will have to know it in the end. But I can tell you, to begin with, Owen, that it's nothing you can do anything about, or take hold of in ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... Article 2 of the NATO Treaty. Are these "liberal" congressmen and senators so ignorant that they do not know the whole Atlantic Union movement is built under the canopy of "implementing Article 2 of this NATO Treaty?" Or, are they too stupid to understand this? Or, are they so dishonest that they distort the facts, thinking that the public is too confused or ignorant to discover ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... extinct, desire is dead—nothing survives but my mere human vitality. At such times, though you were in all the splendor of your beauty, though you should lavish on me your subtlest smiles and tenderest words, an evil influence would blind me, and distort the most ravishing melody into discordant sounds. At those times—as I believe—some argumentative demon stands before me, showing me the void beneath the most real possessions. This pitiless demon mows down every flower, and mocks ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... facts are related in the true spirit of Jerome Cardan, Paracelsus, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and Sir Thomas Browne. Cellini doubtless believed in them; but they warn us to be cautious in accepting what he says about his exploits, since imagination and self-conceit could so far distort his judgment. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... that keep the eyes awake Of drowsy, dotard Time; O care! O guilt!—O vales and plains, Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains, A Genius dwells, that can subdue At once all memory of You,— Most potent when mists veil the sky, Mists that distort and magnify; While the hoarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze, Sigh forth ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... passed away before we were aware by a slight rustle that Mr Francis was back, looming up out of the darkness like some giant, so strangely did the obscurity distort everything near at hand. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... is one of the very few instances in history, of a nation whose political representation was so grossly defective as not merely to distort but absolutely to conceal its opinions. It was habitually looked upon as the most servile and corrupt portion of the British Empire; and the eminent liberalism and the very superior political qualities of its people seem to have been scarcely suspected to the very ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... muscles in my face—muscles you others don't even know you have. Started when I was a kid, then made a good living at it, acting. Comes in handy now, damn handy. I can make anything of my face, and hold it forever if I have to. Chink, Russ—anything. Distort my limbs too, and change my voice. That won't be necessary now. Simple, but it takes ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... another that, as though, more or less, this or that were a matter of no moment, what certainty can we have concerning such a man that inaccuracy shall not elsewhere be found in him? None. He is a warped mirror which will distort every object that ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... so—should be still more glad could I share your belief. But I know better, dearest witch—know that you are mistaken. This is no case of desertion—put that out of your precious mind once and for all—but of discretion. My being in attendance, far from simplifying, would embroil and distort your position. An elderly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... history, when, on the one hand, those who afterwards write it find long periods of time intercepting their view, and, on the other hand, the contemporary records of any actions and lives, partly through envy and ill-will, partly through favor and flattery, pervert and distort truth. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... features flicker and quiver like the mist; strange spasms distort them; he bows his head in anguish, and with every tear from her eyes mingle the bitter drops only ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is seldom felt where Flora reigns; The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears; These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles and bloom, less transient than her ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 3 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... from his adherents, while opposition were not ashamed of exhibiting a glowing exultation at their triumph. So marked was this exultation in several of his opponents, that Burke, more generous, and more noble, exhorted them to guard against those passions which distort the human mind, and severely censured them for their ill-timed and misplaced joy. He also pointed out to them the great expectations which the nation had aright to expect from them after their manifold ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... desire for knowledge and the excitement of discovery. The joy to him is to see things as they are and to judge them normally. He is not bored by the sight of normal, healthy muscles in a healthy, well-shaped body; he is delighted. If you distort the muscles for emotional effect, he would say with disappointment: 'But that is ugly!' or 'But a man's muscles do not go like that!' He will have noted that tears are salt and rather warm; but if you say like a modern ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... truth," she retorted scornfully. "Do you think I don't know you now—how you twist and distort facts to suit your ends? How long is it since your jackal had him arrested for assaulting you—when Wally Selfridge knew—and you knew—that he had risked his life for you and had saved yours by bringing you to Diane's after ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... or that vulgarian (men began to say) exercise (and boast of!) the power to keep the people ignorant upon matters vital to us all? To distort, to lie? The sheer necessity of getting certain truths told, which these powerful but hidden fellows refused to tell, was a force working at high potential and almost compelling the production of ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within - or sometimes only maim him and distort him! ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break. It is that distant years which did not take Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow, Have forced my swimming brain to undergo Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake Thy purity of likeness and distort Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit: As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port, His guardian sea-god to commemorate, Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort And vibrant tail, ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... the ennoblement of their own lives. No book has sold more largely than the Imitation of Christ. But was it not often a blind struggle in the dark, an attempt to reach a goal never clearly seen. Wandering in a labyrinth of fanaticism, agonizing in the effort to distort nature, the biographical record of religious aspiration serves to show how nearly multitudes may approach the boundary line of insanity in their protracted periods of causeless mental agony and in their fierce ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... judged thus? Is not a full indulgence of its natural tendencies essential to a people's greatness? Force the manners, dress, language, and constitution of Russia, or Italy, or Norway, or America, and you instantly stunt and distort the whole ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... situation is, as stated before, an hour from house to office. That is the ideal but, in all honesty, we must admit that few attain it. The average country commuter is a born optimist on this point and will unblushingly distort facts in a manner to put the most ardent fisherman to shame. But figures don't lie. If the time table, say between Stamford, Connecticut, and the Grand Central, New York, gives its fastest running time as fifty minutes, it means exactly that. You ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... loop being pierced with minute holes, and by making a circular flame burn within the loop so that the non-luminous zone of the flame just touched the inside of the loop, and then by aspiration so gentle as not to distort the shape of the flame, withdrawing the gases escaping from the outer zone. On analyzing these by a delicate process, which will be described elsewhere, I arrived at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... shafte of thunder sleete, Lyke thunder rattling at the noon of daie, Onne Algars sheelde the arrowe dyd assaie, 285 There throghe dyd peerse, and stycke into his groine; In grypynge torments on the feelde he laie, Tille welcome dethe came in and clos'd his eyne; Distort with peyne he laie upon the borne, Lyke sturdie elms by stormes in uncothe wrythynges ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... impatience, instantly say that they desire to die, and pretend that their only wish is to be in a condition in which they cannot possibly offend God. This is, indeed, to cover up mere impatience and irritation with a fine cloak! But what is still worse, it is to wrench and distort the words of the Apostle and apply them in a sense of which he never thought. Our Blessed Father, in one of his letters, gives an explanation of this passage which is so clear and so excellent that I am sure if will be useful to you. He speaks thus: "Oh, unhappy ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... leave them no ambition but that of avarice," replied Almamen; "and as the plant will crook and distort its trunk, to raise its head through every obstacle to the sun, so the mind of man twists and perverts itself, if legitimate openings are denied it, to find its natural element in the gale of power, or the sunshine of esteem. These Hebrews were ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the conditional clauses in vii and xxvi to be later insertions (e.g. Skinner, 169 f.). But it was natural to the malice of his foes to distort Jeremiah's conditional, into an absolute, threat, and in xxvi. 13 he corrects them. My translation follows the Greek version, and omits the Hebrew additions which are ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... many persons have a strong distrust. I am reminded here of an eminent mathematician who maintained that the study of ethics has a tendency to distort the student's judgments as to what is right and what is wrong. He had observed that there is apt to be some divergence of opinion between those who think seriously upon morals and those who do not, and he gave the ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... how commonplace was the person who toppled over such an old rotten structure. This is the method of Napoleon's detractors, except when, in addition, they first magnify his wickedness, and then further distort the proportion by viewing his fine powers through the other end of the glass. We all know how easy great things are when once they have been accomplished, how simple the key to a mystery when once it has been revealed. Morally considered, Bonaparte ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... ... one can't expect every one to understand on the spot the uselessness of intellect 'seething in vain activity' ... and so we get again one monster the more in the world, one more of those worthless creatures in whom habits of self-ccnsciousness distort the very striving for truth, and a ludicrous simplicity exists side by side with a pitiful duplicity ... one of those beings of impotent, restless thought who all their lives know neither the satisfaction of natural activity, nor genuine suffering, nor the ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... manifestly false, should be changed, rejected, or contradicted; because they distort language from its chief end, or only worthy use; which is, to state facts, and to tell the truth. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... men and our salvation"? Then we may be sure that, whatever is meant by the "made Himself void," heauton ekenosen, which describes His Incarnation here, one thing it could never possibly mean—-a "Kenosis" which could hurt or distort His absolute fitness to guide and bless us whom He came to save. That awful and benignant "Exinanition" placed Him indeed on the creaturely level in regard of the reality of human experience of growth, and human capacity for suffering. But never for one moment did ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... feather on one of the hours, and warms to rosy glow the tip of a cloud. It appears in unexpected places, grows where only shadow seemed to be, and surprises you anew each time you look up. Painted in the flat—that is, with no part of the picture telling as farther from the eye than another, to distort the proportions of the room—the ceiling yet has great depth, distance, airy lightness. It is a true ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... pepper plants he was smearing with a little creamy-looking mixed lime from the brass box, on which he placed a fragment of betel-nut, rolled it in the leaf, thrust it into his mouth, which it seemed to distort, and then began to expectorate a nasty red juice, with which he stained ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... three children, all dying of scarlatina; but such is too often the case: too often, while the player is tortured with physical pain, or sinking under moral distress, he is obliged in his vocation to wear the face of mirth, and distort his features into the extremes of grimace. The actress, writhing under the pangs of ingratitude in man, or insult from woman, is similarly driven to strain her lungs to charm the ears of an audience, or exhibit her graceful figure to the best advantage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... save poetically, use the pronoun "He" regarding it. I dare not call it a "Mind." I refuse even to call it a "Cause." Its mystery overshadows me; but it remains a mystery, while the objective frames which my neighbours try to make it fit, simply distort and desecrate it.'—Dr. Tyndall, 'Materialism ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... Spanish chroniclers, also by the letters and despatches of Cortez, we do not credit, though undoubtedly they had some foundation in truth. It is the characteristic of all these records to persistently distort facts so as to further the purposes of the writers, and as to correctness where figures are concerned, they are scarcely ever to be relied upon. Though forced to admit this want of veracity, Prescott has relied almost entirely ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say! For let mankind discharge their tongues In venom, till they burst their lungs, Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache; Nor spoil your shape, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place; Nor will you find your fortune sink By what they speak or what they think; Nor can ten hundred thousand lies Make you less virtuous, learn'd, or wise. The most effectual way to balk Their malice, is—to ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... and shades of delight, from peace and calmest content to ecstasy. His life was hid in God. No vain show could enter at his eyes; every truth and grandeur of life passed before him as it was; neither ambition nor disappointment could distort them to his eternal childlike gaze; he beheld and loved them from the bosom of the Father. It was not for himself he came to the world—not to establish his own power over the doings, his own influence over the hearts of men: he came that they might ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... character than any other tree on the Rockies. Though a slender and small-limbed tree in youth, after forty or fifty years it changes slowly and becomes stocky, strong-limbed, and rounded at the top. Lightning, wind, and snow break or distort its upper limbs so that most of these veteran pines show a picturesquely broken top, with a towering dead limb or two among the green ones. Its needles are in bundles of both twos and threes, and they vary from three to eight ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... complaint is not immediately dangerous; but I never can believe that the violent and sudden prostration of strength, the dreadfully convulsive movements which distort the limbs, the livid hue that spreads itself over the complexion, can take place without shaking the seat of health and life. Repeatedly we thought the malady cured, and for a few days the poor sufferer believed himself restored to health and strength; but again and again it returned ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... himself in terms of somewhat exaggerated admiration when writing of a painter whom he appreciates, or a picture that he loves. To us this enthusiasm is an attractive characteristic. It has never been permitted to distort the vision or cloud the critical faculty; and we follow the teaching of the Master all the more closely because we feel his fervor, and know how completely he becomes possessed with a subject which appeals to his imagination or his heart. ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... current law, the landlord, will stand second to that. This conception of the responsibility of the parents and the State to the child and the future runs quite counter to the general ideas of to-day. These general ideas distort grim realities. Under the most pious and amiable professions, all the Christian states of to-day are, as a matter of fact, engaged in slave-breeding. The chief result, though of course it is not the intention, of the activities of priest and moralist to-day in these matters, is to lure a vast ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... proverbial. At least, then, we may give our life-effort to some grand principle which shall redeem society from its misery and sin? Quite impossible! The contemplation of one idea, however noble, is sure to produce a morbid condition of the mind and distort its healthy proportions. Still there is a last refuge. By fresh air and vigorous exercise a man may surely keep his wits. We will labor steadily upon the soil, and never raise our thoughts from the clod we are turning! Even here the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... this government on May 29 of a statement regarding the nationalist aspirations for freedom of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, German and Austrian officials have sought to misinterpret and distort its manifest interpretation. In order, therefore, that there may be no misunderstanding concerning the meaning of this statement, the Secretary of State to-day further announces the position of the United States Government to be that all branches of the Slav ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... notice was the objective existence of matter per se—matter minus perception. Now, matter per se, or minus perception, is a thing which no belief will countenance. Reid, however, could not admit this. Having appealed to the belief, he was compelled to distort its evidence in his own favour, and to force it, in spite of itself, to bear testimony to the fact which he wished it to establish. Thus Dr Reid's appeal not only came to naught, but being premature, it drove him, as has been said and shown, to falsify the primitive convictions of our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... talipes equino-varus is comparatively rare. The plantar flexors and invertors distort the foot into the equino-varus attitude. The heel is drawn up, the anterior part of the foot is adducted and inverted at the mid-tarsal joint. The muscles are tense and rigid, and the reflexes exaggerated. The condition is frequently bilateral, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... faculty; or more than Shakespeare; who could enact a brother man's biography, see with the brother man's eyes at all points of his course what things he saw; in short, know his course and him, as few "Historians" are like to do. Half or more of all the thick-piled perversions which distort our image of Cromwell, will disappear, if we honestly so much as try to represent them so; in sequence, as they were; not in the lump, as they are thrown down ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... Say thou didst not drink it! Say Inis did not—While I speak, the blood Fades from thy cheek! Thine eyes close! Dying pangs Distort thy features; pangs like those which shortened His life, whose angry ghost, grim, fierce, and ghastly, Comes gliding yonder. See his livid finger Points to the poisoned cup! He frowns and threatens. Pray for me, angel! Pray for me! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... faith-thoughts are early and constantly suggested to the unfolding mind of the child they will assist greatly in evolving a character of joy, confidence, and courage. On the other hand, if fear-thoughts are continuously sown in the young mind they will eventually distort the emotions, deform the conceptions, and wholly demoralize the health and life activities of the growing child. Within the limitations of the possibilities of hereditary endowment, and in view of this wonderful imitative nature, we ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... of the fact. If you romance about the animals, you must do so unequivocally, as Kipling does and as AEsop did; the fiction must declare itself at once, or the work is vicious. To make literature out of natural history observation is not to pervert or distort the facts, or to draw the long bow at all; it is to see the facts in their true relations and proportions ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... suicide in consequence, as was suggested, of ill-treatment by the authorities of the gaol. The governor had been tried and punished in consequence. Fitzjames gives the actual facts to show how Reade had allowed himself, as a writer of fiction, to exaggerate and distort them, and had at the same time taken the airs of an historian of facts and bragged of his resolution to brand all judges who should dare to follow the precedent which he denounced. This article, I may notice, included an injudicious reference to the case of the Post ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... thine arm The sons of earth had conquer'd, now vouchsafe To place us down beneath, where numbing cold Locks up Cocytus. Force not that we crave Or Tityus' help or Typhon's. Here is one Can give what in this realm ye covet. Stoop Therefore, nor scornfully distort thy lip. He in the upper world can yet bestow Renown on thee, for he doth live, and looks For life yet longer, if before the time Grace call him not unto herself." Thus spake The teacher. He in haste ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... more news than much else that is printed in a paper, and it is no more pardonable to misrepresent other facts than to distort the opinions of the victim of an interview. Yet it has been possible at times to read in the newspapers of the same day accounts of the same proceedings of—of—let us say, as this is election time—of a political convention. The Banner informs ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... return to Ulpius. It is a peculiarity observable in the characters of men living under the ascendancy of one ruling idea, that they intuitively distort whatever attracts their attention in the outer world, into a connection more or less intimate with the single object of their mental contemplation. Since the time when he had been exiled from the Temple, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... seen terror and anger distort men's countenances, but never have I seen aught to compare with the disorder of Chatellerault at that moment. He stamped and raved and fumed. He poured forth a thousand ordures of speech in his frenzy; he heaped insults upon me and imprecations upon the King, whose ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... mind, in regard to any thing or person will distort the vision and render it misleading, while a persistent self-seeking spirit will effectually shut the door to ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... through the veil of the hypocrite. Each passion has its specific expressions, its peculiar dialect, so to speak, by which one knows it. And, indeed, it is an admirable law of Supreme Wisdom, that every passion which is noble and generous beautifies the body, while those that are mean and hateful distort it into animal forms. The more the mind departs from the likeness of the Deity, the nearer does the outward form seem to approach the animal, and always that animal which has a kindred proclivity. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... should conflict with the ideas of this or that journal in a neutral land. No one need be surprised that such a neutral journal should openly express its dissent. Vigilant criticism would be equally in place. But it is not permissible that a neutral journal should ignore or distort ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... traversed with perfect equanimity, but its cheerful associations are overlooked and the commonest objects tinged with the colour of your subjective states. Autosuggestion cannot change a post into a spectre, but if you are very impressionable it will so distort your sensory impressions that common sounds seem charged with supernatural significance and every-day ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... to create and exploit a division between the Muslim and non-Muslim world and within the Muslim world itself. The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder against those they regard as apostates or unbelievers, including all those who disagree with them. Most of the terrorist attacks since September 11 have occurred in Muslim countries—and most ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... friends, familiar types to us all, reveal to us how easy it is to get lost in our preoccupations and to distort or diminish the truth we ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... incidental history of the period,—the plan of Alison's work might have achieved a triumph of industry and skill, valuable as well as interesting to general readers and professional writers: but the political opinions, with the partial feelings they engender, continually distort the view and influence the estimate of this positive yet pleasant historian; while his almost wilful blunders, like the errors of Lord Mahon in regard to the American War, have been repeatedly demonstrated. Mackintosh philosophized about events, measures, and men, better than he described ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... organizations are built upon the principle of crystallization; they fix the conditions of society; they seek to daguerreotype themselves, not on the present age only, but on future generations; hence, they fetter and distort the expanding mind. Organizations do not protect the sacredness of the individual; their tendency is to sink the individual in the mass, to sacrifice his rights, and immolate him on the altar of some ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... you described the operation of boring the cylinder, you stated that the cylinder, when laid upon its side, became oval; will not this change of figure distort ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... anthropoid apes the surer we may be of that. But, after all, the possibilities of progress dependent upon aural memory are sadly limited; not only because it is easy to forget, but because it is also conspicuously easy to distort, as a familiar round-game testifies. The greatest of all the epochs in human history was that which saw the genesis of written speech. I believe that hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of preceding years were substantially sterile just because the educational acquirements ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... convince us even against our own experience, they are positively undoing the work which education was meant to do. When we receive them merely as an enlargement of what we know and make of the unseen things of which we read, things in the image of the seen, then they quite distort our appreciation ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... work, and to work efficaciously and morally, there is no need of either of these two conflicting certainties, either that of faith or that of reason, and how still less is there any need—this never under any circumstances—to shirk the problem of the immortality of the soul, or to distort it idealistically—that is to say, hypocritically. The reader will see how this uncertainty, with the suffering that accompanies it, and the fruitless struggle to escape from it, may be and is a basis for ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... England from the Roman Invasion to the Reign of William III.," the first written that shows anything like scholarly accuracy, and fairly impartial, though the author's religious views as a Roman Catholic, it is alleged, distort the facts ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... turning the barrel to secure the right adjustment. The barrel looks solid, but, as a matter of fact, it is hollow and much more frail than it appears. For that reason it should not be turned by seizing it with pliers, as that may distort it and spoil the bore within it. The best method is to pass a piece of wire through the hole in its centre, and to use that as a lever. When the correct adjustment has been secured, the turnbuckle must be locked to prevent ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... potassium dichromate or chromate) added to water containing soft creatures such as molluscs, generally will kill them gently by paralysis and leave them relaxed. Usually almost anything else one uses, short of illegal or expensive drugs, causes such specimens to distort or contract into useless lumps. Once the chromate has thoroughly killed and relaxed them, say after an hour or two, the specimens can be fixed, preserved, or manipulated as required. You may wish to compare this ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... engaged, I looked intently into my opponent's face, and measured him carefully with my eye, that I might have his height and figure explicit and exact; for I know how moonlight and fire distort, how the eye may be deceived. I looked for every button; for the spot in his lean, healthy body where I could disable him, spit him, and yet not kill him—for this was the thing furthest from my wishes, God knows. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and intelligible the artist has already told us what he wishes to convey in the most perfect language of which that idea is susceptible, and that any attempt to put it into the lower and more prosy language of the critic would only weaken and distort the thought. ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... imagination intrudes upon intellectual operations only to vitiate them; its part is to fill up the gaps of memory by conjecture, to magnify and attenuate realities, and to confuse them with the products of pure invention. Most children distort everything by inexactitude of this kind, and it is only after a hard struggle that they ever attain to a scrupulous accuracy—that is, learn to master their imagination. Many men remain children, in this respect, the whole ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... you think that people ought always to speak the truth, and to be especially careful not to distort ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... connected with. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like Othello's, would be gone. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools or vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... drowsy fancy began to distort them. He had no knowledge of it. He never realized the change. He passed to the realms of sleep like a tired child, striving to follow the course of the flying sparks from the fire till his final memory ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum |
