"Grimace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to keep control of the situation—she suddenly smeared her face with her sooty fingers and turned with a grimace. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... champion, with affected cheerfulness. But the constable's answer was ungracious; and as for the offer of a cigar, with which this rebuff was most unwisely followed up, he refused it point-blank, and without the least civility. The young gentleman looked at me with a warning grimace, and there we continued to stand, on the edge of the pavement, in the beating rain, and with the policeman still silently watching our movements ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Camusot's name came up, he nodded with a grimace which riveted Mme. Cibot's attention. She tried to read the forehead and the villainous face, and found what is called ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... their best looks and most winning graces for the count. For a time he carried all before him. Daily might he be seen in Chestnut street, gallanting some favoured belle, with the elegant air of a dancing-master, and the grimace of a monkey. Staid citizens stopped to look at him, and plain old ladies were half in doubt whether he were a man ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... Distortion. — N. distortion, detortion[obs3], contortion; twist, crookedness &c. (obliquity) 217; grimace; deformity; malformation, malconformation[obs3]; harelip; monstrosity, misproportion[obs3], want of symmetry, anamorphosis[obs3]; ugliness &c. 846; talipes[obs3]; teratology. asymmetry; irregularity. V. distort, contort, twist, warp, wrest, writhe, make faces, deform, misshape. Adj. distorted ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... that day. He had, to tell the truth, been dreadfully sea-sick, and so for that reason they had left the steamer, preferring to travel the last part of the journey by land. His sleek face wore a decidedly green hue, and he made a grimace ever and anon, as he looked out of the carriage window towards ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... was very agreeable, too, as I crossed the flower-garden, to let my eye with assumed indifference glide over the very spot where the watch lay at rest under the apple-tree; and if David were close at hand to exchange a meaning grimace with him.... ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... long, broad eyebrows nearly met. The grimace gave her the aspect of a sinister boy, bold and audacious. For she protruded her under lip, too, and the graces of ardent feeling, of pain and of passion, died out of her eyes. But this abrupt and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... in a country house in Berkshire, the old lady told him presently, adding, with an explanatory grimace, that it was a house which belonged to a relation—the sort of place where one had to visit now and again; where a month went a very long way; where one had to draw largely on one's courtesy—on one's hypocrisy (if he preferred the word), not to throw up the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... his teeth were chattering, and he watched every motion of Guffey's angry fingers, and every grimace of Guffey's angry features. Peter had been fully prepared for the most horrible torture he had experienced yet; but gradually he realized that he wasn't going to be tortured, he was only going ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... manner. Ludicrous stories; personal mimicry; the most admirable imitation of national accent—Scotch, Irish, and French (he spoke the latter language to perfection, and Italian very well); a power of grimace that equaled Grimaldi, and the most irresistibly comical way of resuming, in the midst of the broadest buffoonery, the stately dignity of his own natural ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... It was a grimace rather than an expression of amusement and Pinto eyed him narrowly. He had, however, the good sense to ask no further questions. Turning the handle of the door, he walked into ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... declared with a little grimace. "It is only that which I desire to know. He was such a beau garcon, that young Englishman. You will tell me that?" ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and looking up, caught Mrs. Larkins' eye and flushed guiltily. But Mrs. Larkins, with unusual restraint, said nothing. She merely made a grimace, enigmatical, but ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... from mine. A pert smirk, and a hard glance of triumph, was Leonie's method of testifying her gratification; Eulalie looked sullen and envious—she had hoped to be first. Hortense and Caroline exchanged a reckless grimace on hearing their names read out somewhere near the bottom of the list; the brand of mental inferiority was considered by them as no disgrace, their hopes for the future being based solely on their ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sense, without fancy, a beau, Like a parrot he chatters, and struts like a crow; A peacock in pride, in grimace a baboon, In courage a hind, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... living man. He was hanging in an upright position in front of a cliff—a yawning gulf, a thousand feet deep, lay beneath his feet. I climbed as near as I could, and looked on. He saw me, and made a wry grimace, like one who wishes to turn his humiliation into humour. The spectacle so astounded me that I could not even ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... world as a gruesome place, Where fair looks fade to a skull's grimace, - As a pilgrimage they would fain get done - Do John and Jane ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... old man made a grimace, and muttered something to himself—but we were just by the bridge before the inn. The steam-boat glided through the opened way, every one hastened to get on board, and it directly shot away above the Fall, just ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... observers of that kind of politeness which arises from good nature; they may hence learn what really pleases in manners, without being taught grimace. ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... the Scholar not be suffered to sing Divisions with Unevenness of Time or Motion; and let him be corrected if he marks them with the Tongue, or with the Chin, or any other Grimace ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... Pearson made a grimace. "Lonesome!" he repeated. "Ugh! Let's talk of something else. Were you in time for your appointment ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... time, when wigs and make-up were employed for characterization.[89] In fact, the early performances of Plautus, unless we except the original Terentian productions, stand almost alone in the history of Graeco-Roman comedy as unmasked plays. This would give opportunity for the practice of lively grimace and facial play. ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... had promised to be good friends, but without much warmth, and one could see from the looks in their eyes at the time that there would be trouble again soon. Rosario, taken aback by the violence of the push that had displaced her, rested content with a grimace. What nice manners some people had! Some people wanted the earth with a fence around it! Gangway for Her Majesty the Queen! Well, there are people and people in this world! And the wrong sort reveal themselves—you don't have to bother to point ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... theatres; the finer tones of passion cannot be discriminated, nor the finer movements of the countenance perceived from the front, hardly from the middle of the house. Authors, therefore, substitute what is here called broad farce for genuine comedy; their jests are made intelligible by grimace, or by that sort of mechanical wit which can be seen; comedy is made up of trick, and tragedy of processions, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... penury, inertness, and grimace, In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, "It nothing skills; I cannot help my case; 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, 65 Calcine its clods and set my ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... le fermier se mit table, et gota la soupe. Elle avait bien mauvais got, et il fit la grimace. Il n'osa cependant pas se plaindre, de peur de perdre le nez, et appela le petit chien pour la lui ...
— Contes et lgendes - 1re Partie • H. A. Guerber
... prosperity and power, no disgrace but poverty and neglect. What charm of instruction can cure the mind that is stained with this disorder? What syren voice can awaken a desire of freedom, that is held to be meanness and a want of ambition? Or what persuasion can turn the grimace of politeness into real sentiments of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases the complete revelation always produces the impression of a previous duplicity. Now Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and even fibs; he often shrugged his shoulders and made a significant grimace at what he called Rosamond's fibs (it is only brothers who can associate such ideas with a lovely girl); and rather than incur the accusation of falsehood he would even incur some trouble and self-restraint. It was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... he exclaimed, and his grimace turned into a respectful smile. "Well, I congratulate you! You're going into the very thickest of the lousy mess. For three days the Italians have been trying to break through at that point. I wouldn't hold you back for a moment! ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... point was at his throat, when my arm was jerked backwards. A moment, and half a dozen hands had dragged me from the man beneath me, and a supple savage had passed a thong of deerskin around my arms and pinioned them to my sides. The game was up; there remained only to pay the forfeit without a grimace. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the stairs to the room assigned to him. The smell of garlic which pervaded the air caused him to make a grimace. Once alone in the room, he looked about. There was neither soap nor towel, but there was a card which stated that the same could be purchased at the office. He laughed. A pitcher of water and a bowl stood on a small table, which, by the presence of a mirror (that could ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... whunstane sense, and the same way with him of steiking his mouth when he's no very pleased." And Hob, all unconscious, would draw down his upper lip and produce, as if for comparison, the formidable grimace referred to. The unsatisfactory incumbent of St. Enoch's Kirk was thus briefly dismissed: "If he had but twa fingers o' Gib's, he would waken them up." And Gib, honest man! would look down and secretly ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thicket which skirted the bay the little fellow recklessly slipped into the water and came out unharmed on the beach farther to the south than Ned had landed. He stood for a moment with the salt water running out of his hair and over his freckled face, made an amusing grimace at the boys in the boat, and scurried ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of the officers' long chairs, in which reclined a girl in a white drill coat and skirt—a slip of a girl with a pale skin, dark hair, and rather remarkable eyes. So much I noted as he rose and quickly turned; thereupon I could think of nothing but the swift grimace which preceded a start ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... "I clean forgot all about de dicks," and then after a moment's silence during which his evil face underwent various changes of expression from fear to final relief, he turned an ugly, crooked grimace upon his companion. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... who is really not under hypnosis has let the audience know about it by winking or making a grimace when I was not looking at him. Observing laughter and other audience reactions which are not in keeping with what is happening at the precise moment during my lecture is my cue that I have an egocentric person on ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... it," objected Bart with a grimace. "It makes the chills creep over me to think of it. I could stand being knifed in a square fight, but I'd hate to get it the way that fellow meant that ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... to be so very fond of you." In answer to this she merely made a grimace at him. "I hadn't known her three days," continued he, "before I began to feel how impossible it would be to say anything to her that ought not to ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... half grimace. He was still cast in the role of culprit, it seemed. "I didn't influence Boyd to do anything, Aunt Marianna. I told him I wouldn't take him with me, and I meant it. If he ran away, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... for Mr. Chouteau to do but acquiesce, though when his back was turned on Black Hawk he made a queer grimace and said rapidly, in English, which probably ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... looked up and met Francis' fixed gaze. He started a little, and made an odd grimace, intended to conceal a nervous twitch of the muscles of his face. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... times," she observed with a not ill-humored grimace. "I wonder if you talk to Rose like that. Oh, I know the house is rather solemn and absurd. It's Florence herself all over, that's the size of it, and I suppose you are getting pretty well fed up with it. But what does that matter ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... into Bayonne at noon, on the 20th of April. Lodgings which would have been considered very inferior in Paris, but which were elegant in Bayonne, had been prepared for him and his brother, the Infant Don Carlos, who was already installed there. Prince Ferdinand made a grimace on entering, but did not dare to complain aloud; and certainly it would have been most improper for him to have done so, since it was not the Emperor's fault that Bayonne possessed only one palace, which was at this time ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... a little rougher than I care to have it," responded Mrs. Blake with a wry grimace and putting her hand to her breast as if to appease disturbing qualms. "It was so stuffy in the cabin I could not bear it. It's more pleasant here but it's getting a little cool and I think I'll go below. Where have you children been ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... glass, unlike the young girl's clear eyes, was an exaggerating and distorting medium; he had noticed that his wife's face in the smoke-room glass looked a good ten years older than the face he knew; he calculated, therefore, that this faint greenish tint, this slightly lop-sided elderly grimace were not truthful renderings of his complexion and his smile. And as (in spite of these defects, which you could put down to the account of the glass) the face Mr. Waddington saw was still the face of a handsome man, he formed a very favourable opinion of the face Miss Madden had ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... up her nose and made a grimace of childish depreciation, while Capitan Basilio, with all his love for antiquity, could not restrain an ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... it is to see the grimace of man made with such effrontery in presence of the face ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... to-night. Little Maurice is now singing to her. Did he take his guitar under his arm? It was here; for I saw a green bag near his hat, when we came in to-night.' Just then we heard the twang of a guitar under the window, and Redmond, in spite of himself, could not help a grimace.—Is it not a droll world?" said Laura, after a pause; "things come about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... gone down." The burglar stood for a moment or two, holding his gun on the afflicted one. He glanced at the plunder on the dresser and then, with a half-embarrassed air, back at the man in the bed. Then he, too, made a sudden grimace. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... turn of gimlet and screw Turning and screwing his mouth round too, Till his nose seemed bent To catch the scent, Around some corner, of new-baked pies, And his wrinkled cheeks and his squinting eyes Grew puckered into a queer grimace, That made him look very droll in the face, And also very wise. And wise he must have been, to do more Than ever a genius did before, Excepting Daedalus of yore And his son Icarus, who wore Upon their backs Those wings of wax He had read of in the old almanacs. Darius was clearly of ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... whew, how it hurts," Charley said with a grimace of pain. "I can't bear my weight ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... sat up, pulled down his waistcoat and made a grimace which he imagined to be a frown. 'Neither breeks nor kilts,' he declared heavily, 'can cover deceit. Ye're under age, ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... from a phial of cordial which he had brought with him. The hours passed, each seeming longer than a day; at last the convulsive twitching of the jaws ceased; the jaw had fallen, the dark cavern of the toothless mouth yawned in a set grimace, the vitreous eyes were turned up into the head: the old man was dead. But Don Silverio did not leave him; two sows and a hog were in a stye which was open to the house; he knew that they would come and gnaw the corpse ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... the old woman, who after some demur, as if imagining that they ought to have been brought to her, got up and took possession of them. She counted them over, and returned one piece as being of light weight. Mustapha, with a grimace, but without speaking, exchanged ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... I can't help it. I am willing to work and so is Rufus. He is as industrious and steady as the day is long. I shouldn't mind having Mr. Lighthouse for an uncle, but husband—pshaw!" and the pretty features screwed themselves into a comical grimace. ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... Flossie, with a bewitching grimace at Martin, clapped both hands over her ears. Roy—standing by the balustrade with Aruna—was aware of an answering echo somewhere in subconscious depths, as the discords rose and fell above the throbbing undernote of the drum. It was as if the claimant voices of the East cried out to the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... reason can not face, Nor wisdom comprehend, nor sweating will Diminish, nor the rain of April fill, And I am weary of this wan grimace. Behold I touch the garments of all ill And do not wash my hands; a dusty place Unprobed by light becomes a loud mill race That ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... matter. They'll come around in time if we're nice to them. Of course, my being a heroine for the present won't help any," Polly said, with a grimace. ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... hearing, then did these show their sense of his appeal thus: One of the party crammed the stinging salt down his throat; the others watched him, and kept clear of the brine that he spat vehemently out, and a loud report of laughter followed instantly each wild grimace and convulsion of fear and torture. Thus they employed their reason, and flouted as well as tortured him ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... that grace the mats Before the doors of Gosh, Smile wide with scorn each sunny morn; And, as they take their wash, A sly grimace o'erspreads each face As the Swank struts forth to court. But every Glug casts down his eyes, And mutters, "Ain't 'is 'at a size! For such a sight our gods we thank. Sir Stodge, the Swank! The noble Swank!" But the West wind tweaks his nose in sport; ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... will confirm the verdict of the present in regard to a poet whose reputation is due to no fleeting fancy, but to an instinctive recognition by the public of that which charms now and charms always,—true power and originality, without grimace and distortion; for Apollo, and not Milo, is the artistic type ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... new-comers had arrived, all pleasant enough. She asked me where I had been, and I told her all the story. "Yes, that is beautiful enough," she said, "but I hate all this breaking up and going on. I am sure I do not wish for any change." She made a grimace of disgust at the idea of the ugly town I had seen, and then she said that she would go with me some time to look at it, because it would make her happier to return to her peace; and then she went off ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... censorious, I am afraid," Granet added with a slight grimace. "I suppose he thinks I am a garrulous sort of ass but I really can't see why he needed to go for your brother last night just because he was gratifying a very reasonable curiosity on my part. It isn't as though I wasn't in the Service. ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... name,—Jenkins; no, Judkins; something like that. Neighbors of the Bettersons; intimate friends of theirs, I mean. You think I'm not acquainted out there? Ask Carrie! ask the boys, hi, hi!"—with a giggle and a grimace, ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... as fearlessly pronounced, to the consternation of the audience. So much had, however, already been accorded, that it was not deemed matter of much moment to concede the rest: and however ungracefully the attitude of respect was assumed, the national hymn was performed amidst grimace and muttering; Cooke beating time with his foot,—nodding significantly and satisfactorily at "Confound their politics;" and occasionally taking a pinch of snuff, as, in his royal robes, he triumphantly contemplated the astonished and indignant audience. It ended:—"Richard ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... slight grimace, and Kilshaw smiled complacently. He had great hopes of Puttock, and was pleased when ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... me. [Adds a little sotto voce and coaxingly.] And as a favour to me, go and take out poor Susie Woodruff. You know it's only "snap the whip" figure, so it won't make much difference to you if she is a bit heavy. [TRIMMINS makes a bored grimace, and goes up stage. MRS. LORRIMER catches him.] Yes, to please me! It isn't as if it were a waltz and you had to get her around ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... with dogged daring the Bartletts whom she had known well; they had been exceedingly kind to Phil, he said. Her manner was so provokingly indifferent that he was at the point of bringing Kirkwood into the picture in a last effort to shatter her unconcern. She bit a bon-bon in two, made a grimace of dissatisfaction, and tossed the remaining ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... true masculine appeal, and express a preference for duty "at sea," "with troops" or "in the field." Although most of this is flapdoodle, it probably does no more harm than Admiral William F. Halsey's grimace over the fact that he once "commanded an LSD—Large Steel Desk." He is a poor stick of a military man who has no natural desire to try his hand at the direct management of men, if for no better reason than to test his own mettle. Even the avowed ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... up the receiver, and when he was asking a second time at the clerk's desk for the missing man, Ormsby came in to answer for himself. Whereupon the crisis was outlined to him in brief phrase, and he rose to the occasion, though not without a grimace. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... the particulars as he could remember them. He asked for a drink of water, felt of the bump again with a smiling grimace, and arose ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... commanded Mr. Pawle. He made a grimace at Viner as the clerk disappeared. "You see how things develop," he murmured. "What are we going ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... is interlarded with "Ja," but he never says a worse word than that, and he drinks nothing but tea. As for a pipe, or a cigar even, when it is offered to him he screws up his queer face into a droll grimace and says, "No—thanks. I want all my nerves, I do, on this bit of road.—Walk along, Lady Barker: I'm ashamed of you, I am, hanging your head like that at a bit of a hill!" It was rather startling to hear this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... Peregrine returned a grimace. Nevertheless they parted with a kiss, and for some time the thought of Peregrine haunted the little girl with a strange, fateful feeling, between aversion and attraction, which wore off, as a folly of her childhood, with ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... neighbor's countenance impresses itself upon your mind, installs itself there, assumes importance, and, in spite of yourself, all the other observations subsequently made by you group around this spot, this nail, this grimace. Think over it, dear reader, and you will see that every opinion you may have as to a fact, a person, or an object has been sensibly influenced by the recollection of the little trifle that caught your eye at the first glance. What young girl victim ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... pressed this back, he felt some thing which prevented its wider extension. He slipped into the room and flashed his lamp in the space behind the screen. There stiff in death with glazed eyes and lolling tongue lay a great gaunt dog, his yellow fangs exposed in a last grimace. ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... Dale," replied Tweezy, his leathery features wrinkling in a grimace intended to pass for ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... impish grimace he disappeared Christopher tore open the envelope he held and drew from it a single crushed manilla sheet on ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... periods. This Scealuidhe, as the Irish call him, opens the drama with an extempore prayer, proving that he and the audience are good Moslems; he speaks slowly and with emphasis, varying the diction with breaks of animation, abundant action and the most comical grimace: he advances, retires, and wheels about, illustrating every point with pantomime; and his features, voice and gestures are so expressive that even Europeans who cannot understand a word of Arabic, divine the meaning of his tale. The audience stands breathless and motionless, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... greatness, of goodness, will be the last things that he will see; for seldom indeed will they be presented to his sight. For the pure, the sweet, the graceful, the dignified, he will have thrust before his eyes gaudy, tawdry caricature and grimace; and, worse still, perhaps wholly vulgar obscenities. Were he in his boyhood given a present in the pictorial line, it would be of an Opera-dancer or a race-course, or an abomination of London low life. What "slang" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... elevation studded with mossy rocks and red cedars. Just beneath them, in a great shining curve, flowed the goodly Connecticut. They flung themselves on the grass and tossed stones into the river; they talked like old friends. Rowland lit a cigar, and Roderick refused one with a grimace of extravagant disgust. He thought them vile things; he did n't see how decent people could tolerate them. Rowland was amused, and wondered what it was that made this ill-mannered speech seem perfectly inoffensive on Roderick's lips. He belonged to the race of mortals, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... attaching to himself young enthusiasts of the radical type, eager to follow him as the disinterested leader of a group of Reds, and then betraying them into the most sordid sort of crime. Cleggett found—and could imagine the grimace of malevolent satisfaction with which it had been ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... admirably, which is also good. But has he well-grounded knowledge? that is an important question, and I must try him." Then she asked him a most difficult question, she herself could not have answered it, and the shadow made a most unaccountable grimace. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... daughters. There is something fascinating in their funny, exaggerated gestures and their petulant way of tossing the head. Their eyes have no magic nor mystery in them, but they challenge us for combat; and when we engage we are always worsted. Their lips seem made for laughter and yet they never grimace. As for their voices, they soon get them into tune. Some of them have been known to acquire a fashionable drawl in two seasons; and after they have been presented to Royalty they all roll their R's as vigorously ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... her very unhappy Melancolia, restrained a desire to grimace before it, and was hurrying across the road to write a letter to Dick, when she was aware of a large man on a white troop-horse. How Torpenhow had managed in the course of twenty hours to find his way to the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... friends of his; Shann had never known anyone but acquaintances in his short, roving life. Most people had ignored him completely except to give orders, and one or two had been actively malicious—like Garth Thorvald. Shann grimaced at a certain recent memory, and then that grimace faded into wonder. If young Thorvald hadn't purposefully tried to get Shann into trouble by opening the wolverines' cage, Shann wouldn't be here now—alive and safe for a time—he'd have been down ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... emetic, Which BOBBY and Pa, grimace sympathetic, Have swallowed this morning, to balance the bliss, Of an eel matelote and a bisque d'ecrevisses— I've a morning at home to myself, and sit down To describe you our heavenly trip out of town. How agog you must ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... shop; He'll fill your pit and boxes to the brim, Where, ramm'd in crowds, you see yourselves in him. Sure there's some spell our poet never knew, In Hullibabilah de, and Chu, chu, chu; But Marababah sahem most did touch you; That is, Oh how we love the Mamamouchi! Grimace and habit sent you pleased away; You damned the poet, and cried ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... we came to the lodges of the Indians. Swarthy-faced girls and women came to greet us. It was evident that many of them had never before seen a white woman. As evening came on, I noticed in one group outside the principal lodge an unusual amount of grimace that was incomprehensible, until, very timidly, a little girl left the crowd. Half-way toward me she stopped and turned back, but again the violent gesticulations were enacted, when the child made a sudden evolution in my direction, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... week's money," she whispered in Sophia Jane's ear, hoping to check her; but its only result was to urge her to wilder acts, and the next minute she was detected in making a grimace at Margaretta, whom she specially disliked. Sophia Jane was certainly not a pleasant child, and it was not surprising that no ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... published several works, tragedies, I believe, and enjoyed a certain kind of literary reputation. He received me with the greatest affability; and having heard what I had to say, he replied with a most captivating bow, and a genuine Andalusian grimace: "Go to my secretary; go to my secretary—el hara por usted el gusio." So I went to the secretary, whose name was Oliban, an Aragonese, who was not handsome, and whose manners were neither elegant nor affable. "You ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Peyrolles, with a grimace, again consented to be frank: "As Mademoiselle de Nevers is not proved to be dead, the law assumes her to be alive, and it is as the guardian of this impalpable young person that my dear master handles the revenues of Nevers. If she were certainly ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... newly-discovered species of animal—a sort of cross between a vulture and a monkey, were such a thing possible, combining the deep-seated fierceness of the one with the fantastic cunning, and the impossibility of doing the most serious things without a grimace, of the other. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... the elf started on a run, whooping and hallooing. Laura could do nothing else than follow him, but she found it difficult, he was so small and sprightly. Nimbly he leaped over the rocks, turning occasionally to make a queer grimace at poor Laura's efforts to keep pace with him. When it pleased him, he stopped and waited for her ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... then made a grimace. "Tastes a little off—reckon it's my mouth; nothing tastes right in this cussed town. Now, up on our—" He stopped and caught at the bar. "Holy ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... with a bit of riband in it, then worked he the muscles of his face into most grotesque expression of interest or pleasure—(Tunc immensa cavi spirant mendacia folles!)—and you had a famous display of grimace and deferential civility, in bad French or worse Italian. We have seen him sneering and leering as he made his way round a drawing-room at an evening party, and bowing like a French perruquier to some absurd fool of a foreigner; and we have seen him, a minute after, holding up his head ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... after," finished the old lady with a little grimace. Then she added quickly, as she saw the hurt look in Betty's bright face: "No, I didn't exactly mean that, dear, and I wouldn't say anything to make you feel bad for worlds, that I wouldn't, only—I jest can't bring myself to ride in those automobiles. You see," there was an almost pathetic ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... the grimace of an old ape, Taanach resumed her task. In accordance with Schahabarim's recommendations, Salammbo had ordered the slave to make her magnificent; and she was obeying her mistress with barbaric taste full at once ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... he said, with a queer little grimace to emphasize his disbelief in the evidence of his hearing. "What are you ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... the other with a grimace. "Japs and Chinks eat all kinds of freak things—nightingale tongues and such stuff. No—thanks. Your Oku's a decent little sort, as Jap butlers go, but when it comes to cooking, give me Christian food and a ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... successful, would start her career once more. With something like a desperate resolve Milly put her latch-key into the hole, and let herself into the paternal home, where a familiar family odor greeted her sensitive nostrils. With a grimace of disgust she swept upstairs. Decidedly it was time for her to settle herself, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... can not be gay and lunch in glens where the wee folk hide and whisper. And Joan and he himself had chains. He accepted the summer with a wry grimace, reading in its irksome demands a chance for real requital. He found no bitterness in the cup he had set himself to drink. It was the price of Brian's welfare and Brian's peace of mind. But he hungered for Joan and the long, gay days of another ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... ardour I was about to rush on with a vigorous shove, when she implored me to be more gentle, as she still smarted from our morning encounter. Moderating my movements, and gently insinuating my stiff instrument, I gradually made my way up to its utmost limits, and hardly occasioned even a grimace of pain. Here I stopped, leaving it sheathed up to the root, and making it throb from instant to instant. Then seeking my loved Miss Evelyn's mouth, our lips and tongues met. Her arms round my waist became tighter in their ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... creature.' Lactimel declared that she was born to grace the position of a wife and mother, and Ugolina swore that her face was perfect poetry. Whereupon Clementina laughed aloud, and elegantly made a grimace with her nose and mouth, as she turned the 'perfect poetry' to her mother. Such were the ladies of the party who went to the Chiswick flower-show, and who afterwards were to figure at Mrs. Val's little evening 'the dansant,' at ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... moved mechanically to the fire, and sat down, while the miller's wife, surrendering the child with a shrug of the shoulders and a grimace to her daughter, went in search of some viands and a flask of wine, which she set before Paslew. The miller then filled a drinking-horn, and presented it to his guest, who was about to raise it to his lips, when a loud knocking was heard at the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with a little grimace, as Philip bends down to fasten a spray of wild honeysuckle in ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... was kind; Bessie grew impatient, and wished she could be let alone. Mr. Phipps laughed at her, and asked if she did not enjoy her novel importance. Bessie rejoined with a scorny "No, indeed!" Mr. Phipps retaliated with a grimace of incredulity. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... but quite possible to live on. It was to prevent his playing ducks and drakes with it that I finally left the jackal of a fellow whom I married. Well, I have that, and I have made a little more, one way and another."—Poppy permitted herself a wicked grimace.—"Poor old Alaric used to tell me I was a great financier wasted, that I should have been invaluable as partner in their family banking concern—that's more than he'll ever be, poor chap, unless marriage makes pretty ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been—Class Pug. First Prize—Champion and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... for Corentin was extremely pleasing to Hulot, who made his well-known grimace as she turned away in the direction of her own house. Corentin followed her with his eyes, letting his face express a consciousness of the fatal power he knew he could exercise over the charming creature, by working upon the passions which sooner or later, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... need to think diff'rent. A girl can't just help being a girl, but when rustlers are around, raising small Cain with her men-folks' goods, why, she's got to act the way they would when they light on a suspicious trail. I was guessing that track would lead me somewhere. But," she added with a grimace, "I wasn't as smart as I figgered. You must have crossed it, an' I ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... Agencourt. A dramatick exhibition is a book recited with concomitants that encrease or diminish its effect. Familiar comedy is often more powerful on the theatre, than in the page; imperial tragedy is always less. The humour of Petruchio may be heightened by grimace; but what voice or what gesture can hope to add dignity or force to the soliloquy ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... must be happy, for she never argues wrong. And superlatively happy are they who can lay calmly down on the bed of death cheered by her approving smiles, for a "death bed is a detector of the heart;" here tired dissimulation drops the mark that through life's grimace has ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... and made a grimace as if he really would have to go back to the shop. But, at the same time, he winked to Riekje to let her know that it was a joke. Nelle, who had not seen this, struck the palm of her left hand with her right fist, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... crawling figure. He knew he was an enemy, knew that the man he watched boded no good to his comrades, and knew also that the fellow represented some subtle form of danger. Yet he could not move, could do no more than gape and grin and grimace, and could not properly realize the meaning of the situation. Then suddenly he started, for another crawling figure came from behind him, and a hand gripped his ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... send for doctors. Can't afford 'em,' said the young lady, with a wan grimace. 'Must I put ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... see 'at I've got a thing to say in the matter," he retorted, with a grimace that bore a slight resemblance to a smile. "You wus tellin' me jest t'other day 'at the lan' an' house wus in yore name an' her'n, an' 'at I had no right to put in. I reckon you'll ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... followed at a leisurely march by my father. The door opened. My father swept the old man in before him, with a bow and flourish that admitted of no contradiction, and the door closed on them. I caught a glimpse of Uberly screwing his wrinkles in a queer grimace, while he worked his left eye and thumb expressively at the cottage, by way of communicating his mind to Samuel, Captain Bulsted's coachman; and I became quite of his opinion as to the nature of the meeting, that it was comical and not likely to lead to much. I thought of the princess and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... called his family war cry,—it sounded like "Wallop a hoo a boo, Erin go bragh,"— sprang on to the walls. A big Dutchman stood ready with a long sword to meet him, and would certainly have swept off his head, had he not nimbly dodged on one side with so extraordinary a grimace, that he not only escaped free, but, swinging round his own cutlass, he cut off the head of the unfortunate Dutchman who was watching him with astonishment. Then he went cutting right and left, and putting the wide breeched enemy to flight on every side. I followed Mr Johnson; I knew that I ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... snapping his fingers and drawing his face in a grimace. "Agent, quo' he! for God's sake take your share of it and say spy and be ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the room, smiling and showing his white pointed teeth. When he saw me, the smile turned to a horrible grimace. Mrs. Milligan did not give him ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... mad-houses full of tragic mopers, and seen there the end of suspicion: the cynic, in the moody madness muttering in the corner; for years a barren fixture there; head lopped over, gnawing his own lip, vulture of himself; while, by fits and starts, from the corner opposite came the grimace of ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... bunch. Within the passage it seemed to look for and discover the handle of a pump, at which it filled a pitcher that it bore, and bringing back the fragments of the former loaf, and remains of the pitcher of water, it ate a little, as if it were in sport, and very soon making a frightful grimace, flung the fragments away. The Count of Paris, in the meanwhile, watched anxiously the proceedings of this unknown animal. His first thought was, that the creature, whose limbs were so much larger than humanity, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... mystery. misterioso mysterious. mistico mystic. mitad f. half. moderno modern. modo mode, manner. modular to modulate. mohino fretful, vexed, sullen. mole f. mass. momento moment. momia mummy. monada monkey-trick, grimace. monasterio monastery. moneda coin; monedilla (dim.). mono,-a monkey; mono, -a neat, pretty, charming. monolito monolith, column of stone. monologo monologue, soliloquy. monotonia monotony. monotono monotonous. monstruo monster. monta amount; ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... a horrible grimace which showed the depth of his agony, the financier cried, "I'll come! I'll come! I'll trust my life—oh, my precious life—to you. After all, you rescued the Kernaby child; and you had to fight to do it! I'll risk it! Oh, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... says we all came from heaven; so I suppose I did, and perhaps Pantalon also," said the Italian with a comical grimace: "but, if so, I have long forgotten what I saw there. Do you ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... He winked; then with grimace and circumstance and many a stiff-backed bow conducted me to the door, where I stood a moment, snuff-box in hand, as though testing some new and most delicious brand just purchased from ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... friends, he instinctively shewed an assiduity, and made overtures with which, by their account, any of their 'bores' would have dispensed. He chilled, though for a moment only, on meeting Dr. Cottard; for seeing him close one eye with an ambiguous smile, before they had yet spoken to one another (a grimace which Cottard styled "letting 'em all come"), Swann supposed that the Doctor recognised him from having met him already somewhere, probably in some house of 'ill-fame,' though these he himself very rarely visited, never having made a habit of indulging ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... spectacle for the guests, who were all drinking her health, their eyes focussed upon her. A veil of tears spread before her sight.... In vain she tried to repress them, to force a smile of thanks upon her face. The smile wrinkled into a dolorous grimace; she succeeded only in convulsing her contracted visage with the sobs that she sought to restrain. Overcome at last, humiliated, powerless, she broke into tears, and this unforeseen denouement put an end at once to all the pleasure of ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... is a great way from here to where your uncle lives—Amersham Place, not far from Dunstable; you have a great part of Britain to get through; and for the first stages, I must leave you to your own luck and ingenuity. I have no acquaintance here in Scotland, or at least" (with a grimace) "no dishonest ones. But further to the south, about Wakefield, I am told there is a gentleman called Burchell Fenn, who is not so particular as some others, and might be willing to give you a cast forward. In fact, sir, I believe it's the man's trade: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pleasure, but surprise. But Thackeray is everybody's past—is everybody's youth. Forgotten friends flit about the passages of dreamy colleges and unremembered clubs; we hear fragments of unfinished conversations, we see faces without names for an instant, fixed for ever in some trivial grimace: we smell the strong smell of social cliques now quite incongruous to us; and there stir in all the little rooms at once ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... me, but they looked approvingly to one another, and seemed pleased (so I thought) that I showed no fear nor acknowledgment of inferiority—the fact being that I was exhausted beyond the sense of fear. Then one of them pointed to the mountain, in the direction of the statues, and made a grimace in imitation of one of them. I laughed and shuddered expressively, whereon they all burst out laughing too, and chattered hard to one another. I could make out nothing of what they said, but I think they thought it ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... a wry grimace. "I like any one so long as they don't do me no harm," she replied evasively. "She wouldn't stand at that, either, if she had the mind. How did ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... at him with glassy eyes. He crumpled the letter in his hand and stuffed one and the other into the pocket of his black satin coat. He attempted to laugh to reassure the startled chamberlain, and achieved a ghastly grimace. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... odour of the hala. He bowed his head graciously; and his royal condescending words of pure Hawaiian I knew would make the old woman's heart warm until she died with remembrance of the wonderful occasion. The wry grimace he stole to me would not have been made had he felt any uncertainty of ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... wont to say it—for say it he did, more as if making a grimace than even as going through a form—but so impressively and reverently, though very briefly, that the hearts of those about to sit down, were touched, and they were reminded in spite of themselves, as they ought to be reminded, that there is One above all ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... so perturbed. He usually approached these conflicts with his father with a passing grimace, exhibited sufficient repentance to get what he wanted, and emerged more debonair than ever. It was disturbing to see him so serious ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... angry. He made a grimace and was evidently mortified—not at my exclamation, but at the idea that there was ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... time a senator again; Flit from a palace to a crib so mean, A decent freedman scarce would there be seen; Now with Athenian wits he'd make his home, Now live with scamps and profligates at Rome; Born in a luckless hour, when every face Vertumnus wears was pulling a grimace. Shark Volanerius tried to disappoint The gout that left his fingers ne'er a joint By hiring some one at so much per day To shake the dicebox while he sat at play; Consistent in his faults, so less a goose Than your poor wretch who shifts ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... a temple. Doubtless I was rendered peculiarly sensitive to it by something in the way I had been giving him up and sinking him. While I met it I stood there smitten, and I felt myself responding to it with a sort of guilty grimace. This brought back his attention in a smile which expressed for me a cheerful weary patience, a bruised noble gentleness. I had told Miss Anvoy that he had no dignity, but what did he seem to me, all unbuttoned and fatigued as he waited for me to come ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... where our planet is swung Doubt loses his writhen grimace, Dry hearts drink the gleams and are young;— Where agony's boughs interlace His Garden some Jesus may pace, Lifting, the wan avatar, His soul to this light as a vase! This earth, it is ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis |
